


The Hearts of Winter Boys

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friendship, M/M, Rivalry, Romance, Secret Relationship, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking, american school system, just so you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: When he heard Wells Fargo had lost it's funding and had to merge with Consol, Sidney Crosby felt a confusing mixture of happiness and horror. On one hand, going to the same school meant he'd actually get to spend time with his boyfriend. On the other hand, none of his teammates knew he was dating their biggest rival.





	1. Prologue: August

Sidney made his way down LeMoyne with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

Cars were lining both sides of the street, so he'd parked around the corner and settled for walking to the Talbot's house. Considering the fact that even half way down the street he could hear the music pounding and see the people lingering around in the front yard, there wasn't a single doubt in Sidney's mind that most of the cars parked on the street belonged to other students there for the Talbot's end of the summer party. He was actually pretty sure he'd seen Véronique's car on Sorel-Tracy, a few houses from where he'd parked his, and he knew without a doubt that that was Horny's car parked directly across the street from Talbot's place.

The Talbot's end of summer party was a tradition started by the oldest two Talbot boys back when they'd been in High School. They invited kids from Consol, Wells Fargo, Verizon, PNC, and every other school in the area and stocked the fridge full of as much alcohol as possible when their parents went on their went out for their yearly anniversary trip. Both of the older boys were away at college, but Maxime had been all too happy to pick up were they left off.

Sidney didn't know why the neighbors put up with it, the loud music and the mass of clearly intoxicated underage kids, but for whatever reason they did. Maybe they just figured that it was better to put up with it for one night out of the year than to kick up a fuss and have the party moved somewhere were the kids could cause more damage.

As Sidney drew nearer to the house, someone shouted out, "Squid! You finally showed up!"

The speaker was shouting loudly to be heard over the music, but Sidney had spent most of his summer with them and recognized the voice easily. Plus, there were only so many people who called him Squid.

"Hey, Tanger," Sidney answered.

He'd drawn close enough to the house that he could see that most of his good friends were standing around on Talbot's porch. Tanger was leaning against the railing on the side with his arm around Catherine, his longterm girlfriend, and a bottle of beer gripped in his hand. Flower and Véro were in a similar position leaning against the front railing. The three Sophomores - Conor, Beau, and Justin - that the group of them had adopted into their group last year were squeezed onto the porch swing together. Olli and Geno stood off to the side of the swing, both with a plastic cup in their hands.

"You late, Sid," Geno said. His accent was always pretty thick, but it was even more prevalent when he was coming off a summer spent in Russia with his grandparents.

"I had to watch Taylor until my parents got back from work," Sidney said. He made his way down the path leading to the porch and then over to his friends. "And it's not like it's that late. It's barely ten."

"Yeah, but now we've all started," Tanger said, tipping his beer towards Sidney, "and you haven't had any yet."

"I drove over," Sidney said with a small shake of his head. Looking over at the three younger boys, he said, "So if any of you were worried about rides, I've got you covered."

"Really?" Conor said.

"Yeah," he said with a small nod. "Just make sure you can walk into your houses without knocking every lamp over and waking your parents up. I don't want to find out any of you got caught and ended up grounded."

"Cool." Connor climbed to his feet, wrapping a hand around Beau's wrist to pull him up with him. Justin got to his feet as well. "We'll be right back then."

As the three of them disappeared into Talbot's house, Sidney said, "I can't believe none of you offered them a ride home."

"I would have taken them," Véro said. There was a plastic cup balanced on the railing near her and Flower, but he'd seen her car and there was a bottle in Flower's hand so he was fairly certain the only thing in it was coca cola. Her lips turned up in a sly smile, the red lipstick on them only enhancing the effect, "I was just going to let them sweat it out for a bit."

"That's mean," Sidney said, amusement bubbling in his chest. "Their first real high school party and you're bullying them."

"We not bullying," Geno said. He pointed one finger at Sidney, "You just being too nice."

"Come on, Sid," Catherine added. "Don't you remember all the things Kuni and Duper put us through when we were that young?"

Sidney was vaguely amused by Catherine acting as though they were that much older than the boys, like there wasn't just two years separating the fifteen year olds from the two of them and only one between them and Olli, but he also understood it. It seemed like forever ago that he'd been a naive little Sophomore, following Kuni and Duper around and believing everything they told him.

"To be fair," Olli piped up, "I think you've been a crueler to them than you were to me last year."

"I can't help it," Véro said. "Sunshine's just too adorable."

Flower let out a soft laugh. "Do I need to be worried, mon coeur?"

"Not like that," Véro objected. "I just wanna bully him and make him cry a bit, you know?"

There was a moment of silence before the whole group burst into laughter.

Their laughter was halted by a sharp voice calling out, whiny and a little upset, "G! Come on! Give it back!"

They turned their heads towards the sound to see a group of boys approaching the house from the direction opposite how Sidney had arrived.

Sidney recognized them easily as members of the Wells Fargo hockey team.

Claude Giroux, a year younger than Sidney and his friends, was laughing as he held a phone above his head. Sean Couturier was trying to snatch it from his hands. Jakub Voracek and Wayne Simmonds were walking on either side of Claude, both looking horribly amused by the situation. Brayden Schenn and Shayne Gostisbehere were trailing behind them. Schenn was laughing while Shayne looked torn between doing the same and helping out.

"Why?" Claude asked. His tone was drenched in amusement. "Aren't you the one who said this was a guys night? No girls allowed?"

"Well she's not here, now is she?" Sean argued. "Give it back before she thinks I'm ignoring her."

"You answer her so quickly that she's going to think you're ignoring her just because you didn't answer her thirty seconds after she messaged you?" Voracek said. He let out a small wistful sigh, "Young love is adorable."

Sean made a jump for his phone, but Claude leaned backwards and kept it from his reach. With another laugh, as Claude said, "As if you don't answer Nicole as soon as she messages you."

"I don't actually," Voracek answered. "Because we're well adjusted people who have realized that all couples need a certain amount of space if they don't want to look like love sick puppies."

Sean shot Voracek a look, "Oh shut up."

"How about you all shut up?" Tanger shouted, turning his head to look at the group.

Consol and Well's Fargo had always had a pretty intense rivalry, their schools were closer to each other than any of the others in the district, but that rivalry got cranked up to ten when it came to their hockey teams.

It'd been even worse in recent years.

Things had gotten so bad the previous year that Claude had ended up with a broken wrist. There'd been a lot of talk after that about whether or not things could continue the way they were going, but ultimately Claude's parents hadn't pursued any legal action and the schools didn't see the need to go through the effort of changing things if there weren't any active complaints.

Sidney sighed and resisted the urge to reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

He'd just gotten here and already someone was starting a fight. Usually they could hold Tanger back for at least the first few hours of the party before he started a fight with one of the Flyers or Bruins or any of the other rival teams at the party.

"It's a party," Claude called out. Sidney watched as his body went from loose and relaxed to defensive in the span of a second. He tossed Sean back his phone, the younger boy fumbling to get a grip on it. "Not much fun if everyone just sits around quietly, issit?"

"Doesn't mean I want to listen to you all night," Tanger shot back.

Sidney could see Tanger straightening, getting ready to detach himself from Catherine so he could confront Claude head on, but before it could get that far Simmonds stepped up and put his hand on Claude's chest.

"G, come on," Simmonds said. "We came out to have a good time, not to get in a fight."

Sidney knew that all of the Flyers were ready to go at anytime, so relief rushed through him at the fact that at least one of them was willing to play peacemaker today.

Claude was quiet for a moment, just watching Tanger. It was like he was ready to spring into action the second Tanger made a wrong move.

"Fine," Claude said. Simmonds dropped his hand from Claude's chest. "Let's just go say hi to Tal and grab some drinks."

Silence stretched as the Flyers made their way up the porch to slip inside the door. The only sound between the two groups was the music and chatter that floated out from the house.

As Claude passed by, his eyes caught Sidney's for just a second before he looked away to step inside.

"I fucking hate those guys," Tanger muttered when the door closed behind Gostisbehere. He lifted his bottle to take an angry swig of his beer.

"I know," Sidney said. His mind was stuck on dark brown eyes, but he forced himself to look away from the door and over at Tanger instead. "But we really don't need anyone getting in trouble before school and practice start. So just avoid them for the night, alright?"

* * *

A few hours later Sidney was standing out in the backyard when he heard someone approaching him.

"You know the only people who come back here are the ones looking to make out with someone, right?" Claude asked, familiar voice washing over Sidney.

He turned to his head to look at him, watching as the Flyers' captain drew close. He hadn't gotten a good look at what Claude was wearing earlier, but now he noticed the way his black jeans molded against strong thighs and how the green tee-shirt stretched across Claude's chest. He'd been wearing a hat when he'd arrived, but Sidney had seen Voracek with it on his head at the beer pong table.

"Yup," Sidney said with a small nod. "It's why Talbot keeps the back lights off. So everyone can make out with anyone knowing who they are."

"So why are you out here all by yourself then?"

"I'm waiting on someone," Sidney said.

"Yeah?" Claude's lips turned up in a smile, a little sleazy but mostly just amused. "Who?"

"My boyfriend," Sidney answered. Claude had drawn close enough for Sidney to reach out for him. Sidney looped his fingers through Claude's belt buckles and pulled him close. He ended up with his back against the house with his fingers tightly gripping Claude's jeans. "He texted me to meet him out here, but last I checked he was playing beer pong with his best friend."

"Mmm." Claude was pressed close to Sidney and he reached around to slip his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "He sounds like a jerk, leaving a pretty thing like you out here all alone. Sure you don't want to make out with someone else instead?"

"Positive," Sidney said. "We've been together for over a year and I'm pretty attached. I spent all summer convincing him to forgive me for breaking his wrist in a game last year. I don't think he'd forgive me if I cheated on him too."

"Hey," Claude murmured, voice going abruptly soft. Sidney had mostly been joking, but when he met Claude's eyes he could see the hint of distress there and realized he'd gone a little too far in their joke. "Stop blaming yourself for that. It was an accident. It's fine. We're fine."

"Yeah," Sidney agreed with a small nod. The fact that he'd gotten so focused on winning and the hostile energy in the crowd that he'd broken Claude's wrist was terrifying, but it hadn't been on purpose. He'd spent a good portion of his summer coming to terms with that. He still didn't really want to focus on it, though, so instead he used his grip to pull Claude a little closer to him. "Are you going to kiss me now? Or did you want to keep playing around?"

"Kissing sounds nice," Claude said.

Ducking in close, he brought their lips together.

It was easy for Sidney to lose himself when he was kissing Claude. It was easy to be so focused on the press of Claude's body against his that everything slipped away. It was easy to focus on the feeling of Claude's hands grabbing his ass to haul Sidney close to him and the warmth of Claude's lips sliding against his. It was easy to focus on the taste of the shitty beer Claude had been drinking and the hint of mint from his toothpaste that still lingered under it.

So when they pulled away from each other Sidney wasn't sure how long they'd been kissing. He just knew that Claude's lips were spit-slick and swollen and his eyes, which were a pretty dark color naturally, had gone dark with lust. At some point Sidney's hands had left Claude's belt loops in order to run through Claude's hair, leaving it messy and sticking up in all directions.

Feeling happy and warm, Sidney wrapped his arms around Claude's neck to keep him from pulling too far back.

"You've been drinking shitty beer," Sidney said. His fingers messed with the loose strands of hair on the nape of Claude's neck.

"It's not my fault that shitty beer is all Talbot buys," Claude objected. "Ovechkin brought some quality vodka, but I figured you wouldn't be too pleased if I got trashed."

"Wouldn't have been ideal," Sidney admitted. The atmosphere was soft between them, light and affectionate despite the heavy make-out, and Sidney knew the smile on his face matched that. "I was planning on going home with you."

Claude had spent the last month of break up in Canada with his Uncle as he did every summer. Last year he'd left only two weeks after the hockey camp where they'd gotten together ended, so Sidney hadn't felt the absence of Claude's presence as strongly as he had this summer.

When Claude was gone this year, though, Sidney had missed him fiercely. He missed the way that Claude would drag him out for days spent swimming in the lake even though Sidney far preferred being in a boat to actually being in the water. He missed going out for lunch and smoothies on Saturday afternoons. He missed driving with the radio cranked up, the windows rolled down, and Claude in the passengers seat singing whatever trashy pop song was playing. He'd missed being able to wake up burrowed under the sheets with Claude's arms wrapped around him.

Now that Claude was back all he wanted to do was spend as much time with him as possible.

"I don't mind," Claude said. He leaned in to nose along Sidney's jawline, pressing tiny kisses into the skin as he went. "But aren't you designated driver tonight?"

"I'm dropping the Sophomore's off. They aren't going to last much longer." Sidney let out a small laugh as Claude nipped at his jaw. "What about you? You're clearly not DDing, but do you need to do anything before we head out?"

"Just gotta let Danny know I don't need a ride. He's offered to pick everyone up since the only thing he was doing tonight was packing to head back to University." Claude bit at a section of Sidney's jaw sharper than he had been, hard enough to give Sidney a pleasant jolt of pain, before pressing a soft kiss against the spot. There was no doubt in Sidney's mind that there would be a shallow imprint of Claude's teeth on the spot, just visible enough for people to notice. "Go get your chicks and take them home. I'll go talk to Jake and Schenner while I wait for you to get back."

"Mmm." Sidney gave Claude's hair a light tug to pull him away from his neck. He pressed their lips together quickly when Claude complied. When they pulled apart, he said, "No more beer pong, alright?"

"No more beer pong," Claude agreed. The words were followed by another quick kiss.

"I'll text you when I'm close? You can meet me on Sorel-Tracy."

"Got it." Another kiss. "See you in a few then?"

"Yeah." Sidney didn't hesitate to pull Claude in for one more kiss, making it a little deeper and longer this time. He didn't want to go any further in Talbot's backyard, he didn't have any desire to follow in Michael Latta and Tom Wilson's footsteps, but he wanted a little more than quick pecks or their lips dragging. When he pulled away, he followed it with a soft peck. "Love you."

"Love you too," Claude said.

They shared one last kiss before Sidney let his arms fall away from Claude's neck. He tipped his head towards the door, "You can go in first."

Claude's lips settled in a small frown, but before Sidney could ask him why Claude shook his head and turned to walk around.

Sidney felt his own lips turn down as he watched Claude's retreating back and wondered exactly what that had been about.

* * *

Despite the strangeness of their last few minutes together at the party the night proceeded without a hitch and when Sidney's phone went off the next morning it was Claude's bed he woke up in.

Claude had had one arm draped across Sidney's bare torso, but now he pulled his arm away in order to pull his pillow around his ears. His voice was muffled by the fabric as he said, "Shut it up, Sid."

"I know, I know," Sidney said. "I'm going."

It took a moment for him to untangle himself from Claude, they always ended up practically fused together when they spent the night together, enough for him to reach over and snag his phone from the nightstand. Pulling it off the charger, he swiped to pick the call without looking at who it was. Claude let out a pleased sigh as the shrill beeping cut off, burrowing a bit further into the pillows as he tried to go back to sleep. "Hello?"

"Sid," Geno said.

"Geno?" Sidney said. He felt exhaustion crash over him, wanting nothing more than to hang up on his best friend in favor of lying back down with Claude. "Why are you calling me? I told you guys I wasn't going to breakfast with you."

"Not about that," Geno dismissed. "You not see the news?"

"No. I only just woke up." He shifted so he could get more comfortable and settle closer to Claude. His bed partner let out a slightly disapproving noise at all the shuffling happening, but he didn't push Sidney away when he settled so they were pressed against each other. Feeling bad about being the reason Claude, who wasn't even a morning person when he hadn't spent the night drinking, had been woken up so early, Sidney reached out to bury his fingers in Claude's hair and scratch at Claude's scalp. He knew Claude found it soothing and that it would help him drift off again. "What happened?"

"The district announced this morning that Wells Fargo lost their funding," Geno reported. "They're merging with us once the school year starts."

In that moment, Sidney felt his entire world freeze.

He had yet to tell any of his teammates that he was dating the captain of their biggest rival and now they were all going to be thrown into the same school building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Okay so every pairing needs a standard high school au and I was all too happy to provide that for this pairing. And let me tell you, writing this au was a lot more fun now that I'm /not/ in high school. 
> 
> 2) I did use an American School system though. Partly because that's what I'm familiar with and partly because that fit better with the fact that the setting is in Pennsylvania. That being said, the only thing I actually know about the Pennsylvania school system comes from a football documentary I watched called "We Could Be King". So if you're from Pennsylvania, please don't expect too much out of me here. Also I'm well-aware of how far Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are, but we're gonna pretend them and all of the other teams mentioned in this fic all exist in some fictional world where their all super close. 
> 
> 3) That being said, "We Could Be King" was the primary inspiration for this 
> 
> 4) So, who noticed what all the street names were named after? 
> 
> 5) I named their high schools after their arena's so they all have odd corporate names, but I liked the system ok. 
> 
> 6) There's a lot of age fudging here. For example, some players who are technically the same age/younger then Sidney or Geno have been put as being older than them and having already graduated. I hope no one minded too much? However, Claude is still a year younger than Sid. 
> 
> 7) So despite the fact that this fic clearly takes place in a fictional state, all country allegiances still exist but for different reasons because I love Claude's accent and couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. Sorry not sorry. 
> 
> 8) beau bennett is still a penguin bc fuck you thats why.


	2. September

"Oh, oh! There's a spot right there," Conor said, leaning between the seats and pointing out the windshield. "Between Geno and Vero."

When he offered to drive the Sophomores to school, he'd been under the impression they would be too out of it at seven in the morning to do much other than whisper quietly in the backseat. Now that he knew how wrong he was, having put up with fifteen minutes with all three of the younger boys chattering excitedly, he was heavily regretting his decision.

"I know, Sheary," Sidney said, resisting the urge to sigh.

He wondered if he could convince Catherine and Tanger to pick Conor up instead. He was going to feel like a dick if he told Conor to take the bus while he picked up Schultz and Beau. It was just that Sidney wasn't sure he could take an entire year of Conor's energy. He loved the kid, but it was just too early for that.

Sidney pulled his car into the space his friends had left open for him. He had to push down another sigh, this time of relief instead of exasperation, when the three of them scrambled out of their seats as soon as he turned the car off.

A fair amount of Sidney's friends were standing in the parking lot as they waited for the first bell to ring. Geno was lifted up to rest on the hood of his car, not quite sitting on it but not exactly leaning against it either. Hagelin was parked on Geno's left. Considering Horny and Hags took turns driving, Sidney wasn't surprised to see that both of them were standing by Hagelin's vehicle. Everyone who was parked on the other side of Sidney - Vero and Flower as well as Catherine and Tanger - were leaning against the fence in front of Hags and Geno. The fence was a small thing, made more to separate the student parking lot from the staff and visitors lot, so Tanger had leaned back to rest his forearms on it.

Sidney's feelings must have been written all over his face, because Catherine had only just glanced at him before she was asking, voice drenched in amusement, "Rough morning, Sid?"

He shrugged one shoulder as he approached, not wanting to outright bad mouth the trio when they were right there with them.

Tanger saw right through it, though, and let out a loud laugh. "Better watch out, kiddos. Irritate Sid too much and you're going to end up taking the bus like everyone else."

"We're not that bad usually," Beau objected. "We're just excited."

"For what?" Horny questioned, raising an eyebrow. "The first day of school?"

"Yeah," Beau said. "I was getting bored hanging around my house all day. Now that school's started I can actually get away from my parents for a few hours. And school starting means hockey'll start soon."

Flower let out a sharp laugh. "Oh to be a Sophomore again."

"I don't know why you're laughing at us. You don't exactly look too upset to be here," Conor pointed out.

"Because I've only got a year left," Flower said. "I'm resigned to my fate."

"And you call me a drama queen," Vero said with a small huff of amusement.

"You're both drama queens," Catherine said. She threw an arm around Vero's shoulders, pulling the other girl close to her and placing a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "But you are my favorite drama queen."

"I'd better be," Vero said, her body shaking his laughter. "Otherwise the two of us don't stand a chance against all of these boys."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sidney said. Gesturing to Flower and Tanger, he added, "The two of them are wrapped around your fingers. It's the four of you against the rest of us."

Before anything else could be said, there was the screech of tires and a thrumming baseline.

They all looked up in time to see a slick black jeep pulling in.

The windows were rolled down so Sidney could see Voracek in the drivers seat and Claude sitting in the passengers. Sidney wasn't surprised to see Claude with Voracek instead of driving his own car. Claude much preferred riding with other people to actually driving himself.  
  
Claude had his head tipped back as he laughed, the wind whipping around his face, and one arm braced against the car's roof as Voracek raced down the aisle. There was a wide grin on his lips, showing all of Claude's happiness and excitement, which had Sidney grinning as well.

"Well," Beau said. As Voracek swung his car into a parking lot, Claude being blocked from his view by everyone else in the parking lot, Sidney turned his head to look at him. "That's one thing I'm not excited for this year.

Sidney heard the distant sound of the first bell going off, warning them they had ten minutes to get their things and report to their first class of the day.

"Trust me, kid," Tanger said, throwing an arm around Beau as the group started walking towards the doors. "None of us are happy about the merger."

* * *

The first day of school was boring, as it always was, but Sidney thought it would end up being a pretty great school year.

He had at least two of his friends in each of his classes. He shared his math class with Tanger, Flower, and Geno which made him cringe a bit. He'd spent enough time with the three of them over the years to know that having all three of them in class with him would make it harder to concentrate. It was nearly impossible to think about calculus when he could be talking to his best friends instead. Sidney was a little ashamed to admit that he had no idea what was actually on his syllabus because he'd spent the entirety of the class period whispering with them.

Claude was a grade below him so there wasn't much overlap in their actual courses, but the merger meant that now he at least caught glimpses of Claude throughout the day. When he was walking to his second period, he caught a glimpse of Claude bending over to grab his books from the bottom of his locker. When he was leaving his fourth period, Claude was waiting outside the room for Simmonds so they could walk to one of their electives together. When he was sitting in his sixth period, he heard laughter in the hallway and when he tipped his chair back he saw Claude twirling a bathroom pass around his finger while Brayden walked next to him laughing at something Claude had said.

Even if he couldn't walk up to Claude and talk to him, couldn't wait by Claude's locker so they could walk to class together or give Claude a quick kiss on the cheek before he left for class with Simmonds, it was nice just to see his boyfriend.

* * *

"So," Sidney said. "How was your first day at a new school?"

His backpack had been tossed under his desk, devoid of homework for at least this one day, and he'd already pulled his school clothes off in favor of gym shorts and a loose tee-shirt. He was spread out on his bed, leaning against the pillows he had propped against the headboards while his legs crossed under him.

As relaxing as the position he was in was, what really had him feel comfortable and at ease was being on the phone with Claude.

"I mean, it wasn't horrible," Claude declared. Sidney could hear the click-click-click as Claude attempted to start the stove. The stove at the Giroux's house had one burner that never wanted to turn on right away but Claude claimed it was the only one that gave his grilled cheese's the proper amount of crisp. Sidney wanted to say it was complete bullshit, but he'd spent enough time at Claude's house and ate enough grilled cheeses while there to notice a difference. "I've got some good teachers and the general population seems okay."

"The general population?" Sidney echoed.

"Yeah." He heard the jingle of Claude shaking the spray can of anti-stick oil. "Not a huge fan of the hockey team. The Captain's the worst of the bunch."

Fond amusement coated Sidney's voice as he went along with it, asking. "What's so bad about him?"

"He's got this really great smile and these really pretty eyes that I just get lost in," Claude said. Sidney felt like he should have been used to Claude complimenting him at this point, but he still felt the familiar warmth of a blush blooming across his cheeks. "I'm super offended by how good looking he is. It's super distracting."

"Ooh," Sidney drew out. "Sounds like you've got a crush. You might wanna be careful of that."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"I heard he's got a boyfriend," Sidney said. "Heard the guys got this crazy soft hair that he loves to run his fingers through and a smile that just lights up the room. He's pretty crazy about him. I think you'd just end up with a broken heart if you tried to get between them. They're in it for the long haul.

"I hadn't heard," Claude answered. There was something slightly off about his tone, like he was upset but trying to hide it. Before Sidney could question him about it, Claude was moving on. He repeated, "For the long haul, huh?"

"Yeah," Sidney said. "For the rest of their lives, probably."

"Big commitment to be making at eighteen," Claude observed. There wasn't any denial or judgement in his voice, though.

"Yeah," Sidney repeated, agreeing. "But it's the right one for them."

Claude gave a soft hum, a small amount of pleasure in the sound contrasting the oddity of his tone earlier, "Seems like it might be." There was a small lapse of silence before he hissed, " _Oh, salope!_ "

Sidney's eyebrows furrowed. He didn't speak french fluently, and Claude's accent was just different enough from what he was used to that he sometimes had a hard time understanding it. It'd gotten a lot better though. He was almost a hundred percent certain Claude had just sworn. "What happened?"

"I missed the bread," Claude answered. "Like half of my cheese is off it."

Claude sounded so genuinely upset by this development that Sidney couldn't contain the amusement swelling up inside him. Laughter fell from his lips, filled with unrestrained amusement and happiness.

"Fuck you," Claude said, though he didn't sound all that hostile. "It's not funny. I've got to make a whole new sandwich."

"Just pick the cheese up and move it," Sidney suggest in-between fits.

"I can't! It's already like half melted!"

* * *

The first few weeks back at school passed in a fairly simple rhythm.

He spent his hours at Consol High with his friends.

He loitered around the parking lot with them before classes. He listened as Hags and Horny recounted whatever insane adventure they'd gone on the night before, sometimes something as simple as tromping through the woods behind Hags house and finding something interesting on the ground or sometimes as wild as walking five miles to the Costco near Horny's place for snacks and encountering all the strange people that came out once the sun had gone down. He laughed as Geno recounted stories of nights spent with Alex, the captain of Verizon's hockey team and a childhood friend of his, and groaned about how sick he was of listening to Alex pine after Nicklas Backstrom. He teased Tanger when Catherine told them he'd jumped three feet in the air when her father opened the bedroom door to tell him it was time to leave, even though they weren't sitting anywhere near each other.

Once the bell went off, they'd have to separate for their first periods but he'd spend the day seeing them in smaller groups. He'd lean against the locker next to Vero's locker to talk to her about the television shows that she'd recommended to him while she picked up her books for personal finance and afterwards he'd walk to their shared class with her. When lunch came around, he'd sit at the table with everyone that shared the period with him and have rowdy conversations about their favorite sports teams chances or silly arguments about who Beau was going to share the chips from his packed lunch with or share stories about their days thus far. When he got to the math class he shared with Tanger, Flower, and Geno they'd spend more time whispering silly jokes and making fun of each other than actually doing any of their work.

As much as he loved his friends, Sidney tended to shift his attention to Claude after school. He went out with his friends once or twice a week, but since he couldn't spend time with Claude in school he liked to spend as much time with him outside of school as possible. Once Sidney was home, he'd call Claude and they'd spend a while talking while they went about their after school rituals. Sidney would knock his homework out, having always preferred to get it down right away rather than waiting until night, and Claude would fix himself a snack. Listening to Claude cook was one of Sidney's favorite things in the world. He liked listening as Claude put on his best Rachel Ray impression for things as simple as frying up chicken tenders or pouring a bowl of cereal. Claude always had fun when he was cooking and Sidney loved hearing him that happy.

Most days after he'd eaten, Claude would hang up on Sidney to spend time on his own homework. When he was done though, one of them would drive over to the others house so they could spend sometime together. Typically Sidney's parents were gone around then so Claude would come to his place and they'd spend the afternoon with Taylor. The three of them would squeeze onto the couch to watch cartoons or play whatever video game they were into that weekend.

When Taylor had gotten sick of their company and rushed outside to play with her friends, the two of them would end up in Sidney's room. Sometimes it was all teenage hormones, kisses and hands slipping under shirts or into the waistbands of their pants, but sometimes it was softer then that. Sometimes they ended up taking short naps, having gone to bed too late and gone too school too early, or they just laid on Sidney's bed and have meandering conversations. Sometimes Claude would be struggling on something in class and would get Sidney to help him with it since he'd already passed the courses Claude was taking.

Usually Claude left around the time Sidney's parents got home, not because he wasn't welcome but because he wanted to spend sometime with his own family, but sometimes he'd be convinced to stay for dinner. Back when they'd first gotten together, having Claude over for dinner had been a little awkward but after a year together it had become common place. Claude would offer to help Sidney's mother with dinner and Sidney would seat himself on top of the counter while his mother asked Claude how things had been going. He'd been hesitant about affection in front of his parents before, but now he had no problem leaning in to steal bites of food from Claude's fingers when they were offered. His mother always got this smile on her face when they got caught up in each other, arguing about a detail from a story had been telling or praising each other for something they'd left out of their retellings of their days.

It wasn't so much amusement as it was a soft happiness, like she was seeing something Sidney didn't when she watched their interactions and liked what she noticed.

* * *

"Alright, I know you're all probably sick of listening to me talk at this point," Coach Sullivan said, wrapping up the speech he'd been giving about unity and coming together despite their past. "There's just one more thing we need to talk about then we'll get on the ice and see what you can do."

It was after school on the first Tuesday since the year had started and Sidney was sitting in the locker room for the first hockey practice of the season. He was sandwiched between Geno and Tanger in the corner they'd been claiming as theirs since their first year on the team, but when he leaned forward he could see Claude sitting further down the bench with his friends. Part of Sidney still thought of them as the Flyers, but they weren't anymore.

They were all Penguins now and that fact seemed more obvious then ever with all of them gathered in the locker room.

"Now I know I've spent the last ten minutes talking about Unity and drilling it into your heads that we're a team now, but I know this transition isn't going to be the easiest thing in the world. So, I'm making some changes in the teams leadership that I think will make it easier for everyone involved."

Sidney felt a flash of cold panic, he was the team's _captain_  after all and he didn't see how a leadership change could effect anyone more then it would effect him, and the locker room burst into noise as the Penguins started protesting.

It helped, though, that when Sidney turned his head and met Claude's eyes. For all that Claude was the kind of loud person who stuck out in a crowd, with his brightly colored hair and distinct accent, he was a calming presence in Sidney's life. Sidney found it easier to breath, to search for logical solutions instead of jumping to conclusions, when he knew Claude was there with him.

"Stop talking and let me finish talking!" Coach Sullivan roared, his voice cutting swiftly through the conversation. Everyone fell silent, but Sidney could feel that Geno was still sitting rigid at his side. "Like I said, we're going to be changing up the leadership a bit, but that doesn't mean entirely. Crosby is still going to be our Captain."

His final statement was spoken with a finality, a promise, that had every Penguin in the room relaxing a bit. They didn't want to change, they liked their team as it was, but they were willing to. Losing Sidney as their Captain, though, was one change they weren't willing to do. Sidney was honestly flattered by their loyalty and faith in him, even if somedays he had a hard time thinking he deserved/

"That being said, I know some of you guys from Wells Fargo are going to have trouble following his lead after everything that's happened so we're going to add a second captain to the team. I'm going to have one of you boys serve as co-captain to help make this merge a little smoother," Coach Sullivan explained. Sidney watched as the Flyers exchanged glances, all of them clearly wondering who would be chosen. Their Captain, Chris Pronger, had graduated the year before and Sidney remembered Claude telling him that no one was really sure who would be stepping up. "I talked to Coach Hakstol and he gave me the name of the player that he would have promoted to Captain if the merger hadn't happened. He told me that this player had demonstrated an incredible amount of leadership both on and off the ice and that he'd been incredibly impressed by how they'd handled having an A last year." There was a beat before he finished, "So, our second Captain is going to be Claude Giroux."

This time it was the Flyers who burst into noise, but instead of it being nervous and angry it was happy and excited. Voracek gave a loud whoop as he threw his arms around Claude, knocking Claude over into Simmonds who threw an arm around him to pull him close and mess his hair up.

Sidney's chest was warm with happiness and pride.

Claude was obviously shocked by the decision, looking a little dumbfounded as he accepted his friends congratulations, but Sidney wasn't. He knew exactly how fantastic Claude was, how good he was at playing hockey as well as how much he cared about his team, and he wasn't at all surprised to find that someone else had noticed it as well.

Part of him wanted to joint he celebration, to throw his arms around Claude and pressed a kiss against his lips, but he couldn't with the locker room filled with people so instead he settled for sending Claude a small smile and deciding that he'd take Claude out that night to celebrate.

* * *

Practice was a new experience.

Not just because he was getting used to the rhythm of being back on the ice with his teammates, but because now there were people on the ice with him who he had no experience with. He was well acquainted with his teammates quirks and paranoias, he and Geno had had a standoff freshmen year about which one of them would be exiting the locker room last, but the Flyers were a mystery to him. He didn't want to do something that would mess with their beliefs and convince one of them that they were going to break an ankle or be the reason for a game loss.

Along with the fact that he had no idea how to avoid stepping on toes, Sidney realized just how different the team the Flyers had was from the team they had. They were aggressive and playful in a way that the Penguins weren't usually. He'd known how vicious their tongues could be when you were on the opposite team, but he'd never realized they joked with each other the same way during scrimmages. He didn't know that Del Zotto was just as willing to tease Simmonds when they were playing on opposite scrimmages teams as he was to tease Geno. He'd known how hard they could hit, but he'd never realized how much of it came from them just being physical people until he was around them. He didn't know that Voracek was just as willing to trap Couturier or Schenn in a headlock until they turned red as he was to check Tanger into the boards.

Sidney tried to concentrate on his instructions, sometimes he'd get caught up in the fact that he was on the same ice as Claude and his attention would drift to his boyfriend. They played together at camp during the summer, but they'd never been on a real team together. So sometimes he would find himself watching as Claude worked through handling drills or as he took practiced his shots against Flower. Sidney would find himself watching even when Claude wasn't actively playing hockey, when he was standing near the other net to talk to Mason or when he was leaning against the glass to take a drink while he spoke to Ghost.

He felt a little bad about it, wanting to give practice his full attention, but the novelty of being on a team with his boyfriend hadn't quite rubbed off yet. He couldn't help wanting to spend a little more time watching his boyfriend in his element now that it was an -option.

* * *

"Ice cream?" Claude questioned. It was late Tuesday night and the two of them were standing at local ice cream stand. Their hands were clasped between them, fingers twined together. "You brought me out for ice cream?"

Even though it was only September, the nights had started to turn cold so Claude was dressed in jeans and one of Sidney's Consol sweatshirts. He used to have a rule about not wearing them, claiming that he would be betraying his team by doing so, but now that they went to the same school Claude didn't have a problem with pulling them on. Sidney really liked seeing Claude in his clothing, so he hadn't objected either.

"I told you we were going out to celebrate you becoming Captain."

"I know," Claude said. "I just wasn't expecting ice cream. You're always complaining about my diet."

"It's a special occasion," Sidney said with a shrug. There were a few people in line ahead of them, so Sidney asked, "What are you going to get?"

"I haven't decided," Claude said. "Can I get whatever I want? Or are you going to make a face?"

"Whatever you want," Sidney said with a small nod. "I promise not to say anything about an athletes diet or make any faces."

"That sounds like something you might struggle with."

"Why don't you tell me what you want and we'll test that theory?"

"Mmm..." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claude tip his head up a bit so he could read get a better view of the menu above stand. He hummed, long and drawn out, before saying, "Chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks and crumbled oreos."

"Sounds yummy," Sidney said. Between the two of them, he had the worst sweet tooth but he was also a lot stricter about his diet then Claude was. He would feel way too guilty about ordering something like that to eat himself. "Share it with me?"

"Depends on what your getting."

Sidney glanced at the menu, looking over it for something both he and Claude would like. After a moment he settled on, "The strawberry shortcake mixer for sure."

Claude made a considering sound before nodding, "Alright. That doesn't sound bad. We can share."

"Awesome." Squeezing Claude's fingers, Sidney dropped his voice low so that the other people in the line couldn't hear him and murmured, "I don't think I've actually told you yet, but I'm really proud of you. You're going to be a great Captain."

"Co-Captain," Claude corrected.

"A co-captain is still a captain and I'm still proud of you," Sidney argued. Sidney lifted their joined hands to his mouth, pressing a light kiss against Claude's knuckles. "Love you."

"You're a sap," Claude said. But Sidney saw the fond upturn to Claude's lips and he felt it when Claude squeezed his hand tighter. "But I love you too."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Thank you for such a nice response to the prologue! Hopefully everyone continues to enjoy the story now that it's actually starting. 
> 
> 2) On that note, the Penguins do get painted in a bit of a bad light in this fic? But that's mostly because you're only seeing the Penguins when their being swept up in the rivalry? I'm sure the Flyers would seem just as bad if I wrote this from Claude's perspective.
> 
> 3) Okay but it's a fact of life that if you go on any kind of walk after 7pm weird shit happens. It's just that that weird shit is so dramatically unpredictable that I didn't have specific examples for Horny and Hags? So feel free to give them your own wacky experiences or share them with me in your reviews? I'd love to know!
> 
> 4) Also shout out to one of my favorite pairings/line combinations. Nicky and Ovi man. 
> 
> 5) Typically in fics, I like to have Sidney as the person who can cook since Claude's primary love seems to be grilled cheese but this time I liked the idea that Claude liked to cook? Especially when he can get silly with it. 
> 
> 6) In the last section of this fic, Claude and Sidney go out downtown even though their relationship is a secret. Even with a secret relationship though, they'd still go out. I feel like Sidney would just know where his friends were likely to go and be able to avoid those places. 
> 
> 7) To be honest, I feel like this chapter is too sappy? Too high school? Which is odd considering it's a high school au. Let me know what you thought?


	3. October

Sidney was listening to Hags and Horny argue, more affectionate and teasing than actually antagonistic, when there was a loud bang. Looking up from his tray, having been poking at the meat on his tray as he tried to determine what exactly was sitting on his plate, he found the noise had come from Flower dropping his tray onto the table.

He was standing behind the chair between Murray, the freshmen they'd dragged into their group, and Hags with an absolutely thunderous expression on his face. He was wearing a pair of incredibly small shorts, denim with lace flowers around the pockets, and a red shirt that hugged him in all the places where a girl would have curves. They were both items of clothing that Sidney knew belonged to Catherine.

"Did you hear the announcement last period?" Flower asked, his voice dark with irritation. "About who won most spirited for today?"

"Yeah," Sheary said as he shoveled a fork of what Sidney thought chicken into his mouth. "Giroux and Voracek right?"

"Yes!" Flower exclaimed as he dropped into his seat. "How did the two of them win most spirited over Vero and I? They haven't even gone to school here for a month! They don't have any school spirit! Last homecoming it was their asses we were trying to kick!"

Even if Sidney hadn't known that Claude had elaborate outfits planned for the entire week, he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that Claude had decided to dress up for spirit week. Sidney had seen every ridiculous outfit Claude had picked out for Wells Fargo's spirit week at the beginning of the last school year - from the day he'd dressed as Chuckie from Rugrats for the TV themed day to the day he'd gone to school fully suited up for a hockey game because he was supposed to dress for the future and hockey was his future as far as he was concerned - and he knew that as much spirit as Claude had it was honestly more about having fun. He found the whole process fun. He liked putting together the costume and he liked making other people grin when they saw him.

Claude was the kind of person who cared more about having fun and enjoying his life than he did about embarrassing himself or showing school spirit. There were times when Sidney was so crippled by others opinions of him that he couldn't do something he wanted to do, but Claude didn't worry about those things. And when he did, he didn't let him stop from doing what he loved.

Sidney loved that about him.

"Well, the theme for today was twins and you can't deny the fact that they look alike," Sidney said. "A lot more alike then you and Vero do, even with the matching outfits."

Sidney did find it cute that Flower had borrowed clothes from Catherine so that he and Vero could twin it up, but they were still Flower and Vero.

Claude and Voracek had come to school in relatively simple outfits, just jeans and a black sweatshirt. Only their sweatshirts had each other's names on the back and Sidney had heard people calling them by the wrong name all day. Sidney could tell the difference between Claude and Voracek with his eyes closed, but he knew how similar the two of them could look to people who had only known them a month and didn't know what every detail of Claude's face.

"He's got a point," Horny said. He and Hags had stopped their argument when Flower had joined them. "I went to talk to ask Mason if he could stay behind in practice today to help me with my wrist shot, but Voracek was with him and I said "Hi, Captain" because I thought it was Giroux."

"I don't care how similar they look! They aren't even real penguins!" Flower declared. Spinning, he pointed his fork at Horny and added, "And stop being a traitor. Sidney's our Captain and if you want to practice shots I'll stay behind."

Horny threw his hands up in defense. "Sorry, Flower. I thought you had a date with Vero tonight."

"And Claude and I are both your captains," Sidney said.

"Whatever," Flower declared, waving his hand dismissively before looking down at his tray.

The fact that his friends kept blowing Claude's position as their captain away as though it didn't mean anything to them bothered him. It was irritating to hear his friends dismiss his boyfriend like that, but he didn't know what he was supposed to say to them to get them to listen.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Sidney returned to poking at his food as the others at the table started discussing other costumes they'd seen that day.

* * *

Spirit week was always exhausting for Sidney, but that week seemed to be even worse than usual.

The school was buzzing with excitement. The hostility the students from Wells Fargo and Consol usually held against each other melted away in the face of homecoming. They'd been great teams individually, but combined they were an absolute powerhouse. No one was ignorant to what that meant for their chances, not just of winning the homecoming game but also of topping the division, the conference, and eventually states. It did wonders for the unity of the two student populations in Consol.

However, the lack of hostility also meant that Sidney had twice the number of people coming up to him and wishing him luck. He knew that Claude being his co-captain kept him from getting the full brunt of it, the student population at Wells Fargo had been huge and had pretty much doubled Consol's, but that didn't stop him from feeling exhausted every time another stranger stopped him in the hallway to talk about how excited they were for the season.

On top of that was the fact that he had to spend most of his afternoons helping the cheerleaders decorate the school. It was a kind of trade off between the two groups. The cheerleaders would make the decorations during hockey practice and before they left the boys would help them hang them throughout the building. Usually Sidney didn't mind the job, it didn't take very long to get everything up as long as they all actually worked. Even when they got caught up, Sidney care all that much. He was on good terms with most of the girls on the squad since they supported each other so it wasn't a huge chore to take a few minutes out of his day to help them.

This year, however, there was an entire group of girls from Wells Fargo who he didn't know. As exhausting as dealing with a collection of strangers was, the worst part was the way that the girls from Consol were leering at Claude. They would hold ladders for him, biting their lips as they watched him climb up it to reach a particularly high section of wall, or wrap their fingers around his biceps as they asked for his help with something. Sidney knew Claude was attractive - obviously given that he was quite attracted to Claude himself - so the worst part wasn't even seeing someone else flirt with Claude. It was the way that Claude was being hit on left and right, but he didn't so much as acknowledge Sidney's existence. Occasionally Claude would glance over at Sidney while he was talking to someone, but he would always look away a few seconds later with a small frown on his face.

* * *

"I definitely looked better in orange," Claude declared, "but the black isn't too bad, is it?"

It was late Thursday night Claude and Sidney were in Sidney's parents bedroom. Sidney was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands behind him, leaning backwards so his weight was resting on his palms. Claude was standing in front of the full length mirror Sidney's mother had hung up on the door. He was wearing a pair of tattered jeans with his new Jersey thrown over it. They were required to wear their jersey's to school on the day of the homecoming game and since it was their first game of the season Claude had wanted to try it on before he went to school in it.

Sidney was really regretting the fact that he didn't have a mirror of his own.

There was something dirty and wrong about getting turned on when he was sitting on his parents bed, but seeing Claude in his jersey was something Sidney couldn't help enjoying. It was Claude's number on the back - a sharp white 28 - and Claude's name written across the top, but black and gold were Sidney's colors. Seeing Claude in them had warmth gathering Sidney's gut and a sharp feeling of 'mine' running through his head.

"You are being strangely quiet," Claude said after a moment. He threw a look over his shoulder, "Do I really look that bad in it?

"No," Sidney said. His voice came out a little deeper and rougher than usual. He cleared his throat before shaking his head. "No. You look great in it."

Claude looked at Sidney, face discerningly blank as he searched Sidney for something. After a moment, Claude's lips curled into a wicked smile and familiar spark lit up his eyes. "Why, Crosby, is this doing it for you? Me in your parents bedroom?"

"No," Sidney said, making sure the word came out firm. Leaning forward, he reached out so he could grab one of Claude's wrists and pull him in. Claude settled easily between Sidney's thighs, setting his hands on Sidney's shoulders when he let go of his wrist. Sidney put his hands on Claude's hips, letting his thumbs duck under the jersey so he could press them against the soft skin at Claude's waist. "You're doing it for me. I like seeing you in my colors."

"Our colors," Claude corrected. "We're on the same team, you know?"

"The two of us have been a team for a while now," Sidney said. He leaned up to peck Claude's lips quickly. "It doesn't mean I don't enjoy being on the same _hockey_ team as you and having all of our friends see how amazing we are together."

Displeasure flickered across Claude's face, but it disappeared before Sidney could question it.

"Come on, let's get out of here. Being in your parents room is starting to feel weird and I've got to get this jersey off before I do anything to ruin it," Claude said, stepping out of Sidney's reach. He swooped down to grab his tee-shirt from the ground. " I should probably head home actually. You've got an essay to write, don't you? And I've got a few pages of stats work to do."

"Don't leave. Stay for a little while longer," Sidney said, climbing to his feet. Claude had pulled his jersey off and pulled his tee-shirt back on, so Sidney grabbed Claude around the waist and rested his chin on Claude's shoulder. He nuzzled against Claude's neck, pressing a light kiss against the skin there. "My essay isn't due until Monday and I'll help you with your stats work if you want. You don't have to rush out of here."

Claude gave a soft hum as Sidney pressed another kiss against his neck. Sidney was expecting an answer, but instead Claude said, "We're still in your parents room, you know?"

Sidney groaned. "Really?"

"Just stating facts," Claude said, sounding entirely too amused for Sidney's liking. He tapped his hands against Sidney's. "I'll stay, but you have to actually help me with my stats work. Nothing else."

"Alright," Sidney said. He didn't really mind what they were doing as long as Claude stayed with him. "Stats homework it is."

* * *

Friday afternoon was full of excitement. Sidney would have felt bad for the teachers, the entire student body was loud and rowdy and incapable of talking about economics when they could be talking about the game instead, but he couldn't focus on anything except the fact that they had their first game of the season that night.

He was nervous, but what he felt more than that was the heavy anticipation in his gut. He couldn't wait to crouch down in front of the face off circle, knowing that it wasn't just practice or a scrimmage but something that counted. He couldn't wait to chase the puck down, knowing that someone else would be chasing after him with the intention of slamming him into the boards. He couldn't wait to pull his stick, knowing that he was waging a one-on-one war against the goalie.

Practice was great, he liked being on the ice and joking around with his friends, but being on the ice felt so much better when it was a real game.

What Sidney was expecting, though, and what he actually got were two entirely different things.

Sidney knew it would feel great to be back on the ice, but he wasn't expecting how absolutely fantastic it felt when they went on the power play and the puck went straight from Claude's stick to his. He hadn't expected his chest to feel so full of excitement and happiness that it felt as though his chest was going burst open when that puck slipped behind Halak and into the net.

He knew being back on the ice would feel great, he just didn't understand how great it would feel to be back on the ice with Claude by his side.

* * *

Sidney was leaning against the wall, a red cup filled with more cola than liquor in his hand and watching as Sunshine flirted horribly with a girl across the room, when he felt two heavy weights fall over his shoulders. Lips were pressed close to his ear and a femine voice purred, "What's up, Superman?"

"Hi, Catherine," Sidney said without looking to his left. With Catherine speaking into his left ear, there was only one other person that could be on his right. "Hi, Vero."

It was the Saturday before Halloween and the group of them were out at a Halloween party being thrown by one of Geno's Russian friends. Sidney hadn't really been planning on going, had planned on calling Claude to ask if he wanted to watch some horror movies and spend the night, but his friends had insisted that he spend sometime with them since he hadn't been going out with them recently. He'd tried to argue, but Catherine and Vero had shown up on his doorstep with the Superman costume and he'd had to text Claude to rearrange their plans.

"Hi Sid," Vero said, voice light and amused. All of their friends had matched costumes, so Vero was the Catwoman to Flower's batman. "Are you having a nice night?"

Sidney really wasn't. It wasn't a bad party, but he could've been spending the night on his couch with Claude. What made the night even worse was the fact that Claude was wrapped up in a blanket burrito eating popcorn and watching shitty horror movies without him. He'd been sending Sidney snapchats, selfies with his eyes just poking out of his blankets after a particularly scary scene or videos of him rolling his eyes at something particularly over the top, and all Sidney wanted was to be there with him instead of at this stupid party. He loved his friends, but they didn't really compare to a night cuddling with his boyfriend.

Before he could reply, however, Catherine said, "You don't actually need to answer that. We can tell you're having a shitty night. Do you know why?"

"Why?" Sidney asked, glancing over at her.

Catherine was dressed at Poison Ivy. Tanger was running around as Nightwing, but Catherine had insisted against Batgirl or Starfire. If she was going to be a badass red head, then she was going to be a bad badass redhead.

"Because you've been standing over here in this corner by yourself instead of having fun with us," Catherine said. "Which is kind of sad and a little pathetic."

"I didn't even want to come here," Sidney pointed out. "I told you I wasn't in the partying mood."

"We know, but since you ended up coming anyway we thought you should have some fun." Catherine reached up, setting green painted fingernails on Sidney's jaw and turning his head so he was looking at the dance floor. She pointed one finger out as she said, "You remember Tyler Seguin, don't you?"

Sidney did. Tyler Seguin was a Sophomore at TD Garden and someone Sidney had gone to camp with the past two years. He was fast as hell on the ice and an absolute terror on the face off. As a Sophomore he should have still been in his awkward stage, still trying to navigate puberty and it's effects on his body, but he'd apparently skipped right over that because he was also absolutely gorgeous.

He was used to seeing Tyler all bundled up in hockey gear, but now he was on the make-shift dance floor in an extremely small white slip. The outfit was small enough that every wiggle of his body pushed it up higher, flashing thighs that were as golden as the rest of his skin. He wore a pair of gladiator sandals with ribbons that wrapped around strong calves, highlighting their width and strength. Nestled in his dark hair was a laurel made of golden leafs. His mouth was spread open in that wide, white grin that had everyone in his vicinity tripping over themselves to please him and there was a sharp spark of teenage mischief in his eyes.

Vero said, "We thought he might be your type. A little young for you, but he's nice to look at and he's always eager for more attention. We figured he might make your night a little better."

The thought had Sidney's gut churning. Tyler Seguin was gorgeous, that was undeniable, but the idea of hurting Claude like that was physically sickening to him. He loved Claude and he couldn't imagine being with anyone other than him.

"No," Sidney said with a firm shake of his head. He knew his displeasure was obvious in his voice because he saw the two of them exchange worried looks, as though realizing they'd crossed a line even without knowing what that line was. "No."

"Okay," Catherine said, her hand dropping from his face. Her voice was a mixture of cautious concern and confusion. "We're not going to force you to hook up."

Vero shuffled a little closer to him. She'd been leaning against his shoulder, but now she set her chin there and wrapped her arms around his waist. "We just wanted you to be happy, Sid. You haven't had a boyfriend in the entire time you've been out. We just thought you should try something new."

Sidney shook his head. Instead of correcting her on what she'd said about him having a boyfriend, he rested his cheek against his hair and said, "I don't need to make out with Tyler Seguin to be happy. I'm already happy. I get to spend my days playing hockey, my favorite thing in the entire world, with a team full of people I love. How could I not be happy?"

Catherine made herself comfortable in the same way that Vero had and let out a soft hum. She didn't sound entirely convinced, but she dropped the topic and that was really all Sidney cared about in that moment.

* * *

The rest of the party passed without any of Sidney's friends trying to set him up with anyone else at the party.

Instead the lot of them stuck to themselves and Sidney found himself actually having fun as the night passed by. It wasn't the alcohol slowly making it's way through his body, so much as it was that he genuinely hadn't spent a night out with his friends in a while. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Flower, the two of them gagging and choking together when Geno pushed straight vodka shots into their hands. He wrapped his arms around Tanger to drag him out of the house when he and Catherine, who Geno had thrown over his shoulder, decided to start a fight with another couple. He sat in a booth at Denny's in one of the shadier parts of town, shoveling hashbrowns into his mouth as the group of them made up creative stories about the other patrons at the diner.

It was fun. It was nice to spend some time with his friends without worrying about anything else that was going on.

The only thing that would have made it better was if Claude had been there with him. If he could have thrown an arm around Claude's shoulders the way Flower did with Vero or steal bites from Claude's plate the way Catherine was with Tanger.

He wished he could have Claude by his side, but every time he thought about telling them he would remember some comment they'd made about the Flyers and the words would stick in his throat. He didn't know how he was supposed to tell his best friends that he was dating someone they hated.

He didn't want to disappoint his best friends.

Even more than that, he didn't want to lose them.

The way things were right now wasn't ideal, but they were working.

* * *

"You never told me how the party was the other day," Claude said. It was Halloween night and the two of them were sitting on Sidney's couch. Claude was facing forward while Sidney leaned against the arm with his feet thrown over Claude's lap. A bowl of candy they were supposed to be handing it out to the trick or treaters rested on Sidney's legs. There was a pile of candy wrappers on the side table which showed just how well that was going. "Was it fun?"

"Yeah," Sidney said. He reached towards the bowl, pulling one of the mini candy bars out of it. As he tore the wrapper, he said, "Geno did his Russian thing and tried to kill us. Tanger and Catherine almost started a brawl. Vero decided our waitress at Denny's was Wonder Woman." With the Kit-Kat free, he tossed the wrapper onto the side table. As he was about to toss one of the halves in his mouth, he added, "Oh. And Catherine and Vero tried to set me up with Tyler Seguin."

Claude had been focused on the TV, watching the stupid Halloween special they'd found to watch, but now he turned his head to Sidney. "What?"

"That kid from TD Garden? Number 91?"

"I know who he is," Claude said. "They tried to set you up with him?"

"Uh huh," Sidney said with a small nod. "I was a little upset at the time, but now that I'm thinking about it I think it's kind of funny. I can't believe they thought Tyler Seguin was my type."

Claude gave a soft hum. He reached towards the candy bowl as he said, "You know, they wouldn't try to set you up if you told them who you were actually seeing."

"If they knew who I was actually seeing they'd be ten hundred times more likely to try and set me up," Sidney said with a sharp laugh. "They'd just be setting me up before they think Tyler Seguin is a better choice than you."

"Does it matter what they think of me?" Claude asked. "They don't have to love me as long as you do."

"It matters to me," Sidney answered. "I don't want to invite you to sit with lunch with us if they're just going to be hostile instead of giving you a chance."

"You haven't exactly given them a chance," Claude said. His voice had been calm and level throughout the entire conversation, but now there was a hint of something in his voice that had Sidney frowning. "Maybe we don't like each other now, but we haven't exactly gotten to talk outside of hockey either. To them I'm just the Captain of a rival team. I'm not your boyfriend or even your friend."

"Okay. I don't know how to fix that though, Claude. I'm not exactly hostile towards you at school and they still think I hate you," Sidney said.

Claude's lips turned down in a frown. "I can't tell if you're honestly misunderstanding me or if you're doing it deliberately."

"What do you-?" Before Sidney could finish his question, the door bell rung.

He considered ignoring it, but Claude grabbed the edge of the candy bowl and shoved it into Sidney's hands. "Go. I'm going to find something else to watch while you deal with the kids."

Sidney wanted to object, but Claude had already picked the remote up off the couch arm and the kids outside were ringing the doorbell a second time.

He let out a heavy sigh before rolling off the couch and heading towards the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying this fic? I'm a little worried that it's too cheesy and high school-y, but it is a high school au? At the same time sometimes I worry their relationship is too mature? I'd love your opinions as people who are in or have finished high school. 
> 
> 2) So spirit weeks are fun. I never really enjoyed dressing up for them myself, but I knew kids who got so into it and I would love seeing all of their outfits. Flower has so much fun with life though that I thought he would definitely be the type of person that would get into that stuff. And Voracek and Claude (and the Flyers in general) are just such fun and strange characters that I can't IMAGINE them being the types of people who wouldn't dress up. 
> 
> 3) I'm not ENTIRELY sure how high school sports work?? I went to a school where we were bad enough that just making it to the divisional championship (in football, not hockey) was an accomplishment so I'm not really sure what happens after that? I do remember talk of conferences and states though? So I went with that system here. 
> 
> 4) Okay so Cole's number on the Penguins is also 28, but seeing as Claude is actually the main character of the story and my favorite hockey player I refuse to shuffle his number. So Claude has 28 and if Cole shows up than I'll find him another one. 
> 
> 5) Sidney is absolutely the stupidest person in this fic and every chapter is just gonna get worst. 
> 
> 6) I think a lot of straight teens don't realize how UNCOMMON it is for gay teens not to share their experiences with high school romance and hook up culture? So there's a bit of that in here between Vero, Catherine, and Sidney.


	4. November

Sidney sat in the library with his laptop open in front of him and a pen in his hand that he was tapping against his lip as he read the words displayed on the screen.

The library tables were so small that they could barely fit two people around them so the group of them had shoved two tables together. The librarian had given them a dirty look as they were doing it, but she hadn't actually come over to stop them so they ignored her. With the tables pushed together, there was plenty of room for all six of them to sit down. Sidney and Geno sat at the ends, leaving one side for Tanger and Flower and the other for Catherine and Vero.

"Sid, I thought you finished your common app already," Catherine said.

"I did," Sidney said. He typed in the last few numbers of his address before glancing up from the application he was working on to look up at Catherine. "I sent it in last weekend."

"Then what are you working on?" she asked. Usually the group of them spent their free period messing around outside the building, walking up to the convenience store near the school for snacks better than the ones in the vending machine or messing around at the park only a few blocks away. With December fast approaching though, they'd decided to take their free time today to finish off the last of their college applications and send them off. "There aren't that many schools outside the common app system."

"Penn State has it's own application," Sidney said. "I got the essays filled in already, so I'm just filling in the basic information before sending it off."

"You're applying to Penn State?" Tanger asked, looking over at him. "You didn't tell me that."

Sidney shrugged without giving an answer.

Penn State was a good school close to home with a hockey team that wasn't horrible. With only a two hour drive separating the school from Pittsburgh, Sidney could visit his family on the weekends without too much fuss. With only a two hour drive separating them, Sidney could come see Claude on the weekends or Claude could come up to stay in his dorm with him.

"Next year is going to be so weird," Catherine said, giving a small sigh and saving Sidney from further questioning. "We've been together for so long. It's going to be so weird not seeing you guys."

"It's not like we're never going to see each other again," Vero said, nudging Catherine with her elbow in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. "We're best friends, Cath. That's not going to change just because we go to different schools."

"I know, but we won't be there for each other all the time, you know?" Catherine said. She leaned over, resting her head on Vero's shoulder. Vero immediately lifted her arm to wrap it around Catherine's shoulders, squeezing her lightly. "I mean Geno's talking about going to school in Russia. I can't fly to Russia at the drop of the hat and help him out if he tries to get in a fight with someone bigger then him."

"Not going to be the one starting fights," Geno said. "Gonna be the one trying to stop Sasha from fighting."

"See!" Catherine said. "Geno's ditching us for Ovechkin."

"Knew Sasha first," Geno said, looking away from his laptop to smile at Catherine. "Ditched him for you, маленькая кошка."

Catherine flashed Geno a warm smile at the nickname. "Yeah, but now your going to go back to him! It's like when you break up with someone and then go right back to them!"

"You familiar with that?" Tanger said, lifting a speculative eyebrow at his girlfriend.

"Oh, shut up," Catherine said. "Can't I be sad without you guys making fun of me? I mean don't you remember when Sidney started singing Slow Motion during your practice freshman year? We're not going to get to see him doing all that stupid stuff when we're going to different schools!"

"Oh my god," Sidney groaned, tipping his chair back on two legs and looking up at the sky as he did. "Stop talking about that. I never would have done it if I've known you guys were going to make fun of me for it."

"Uh," Tanger and Flower sung in unison, "I like it like that. She working that back. I don't know how to act. Slow motion for me."

Sidney didn't bother looking back down at them, just flipped his two middle fingers up at them.

With his head tilted back as it was, Sidney had a perfect view of the library door as it swung open to show Claude walking in with Simmonds, Voracek, and Streit. Claude was wearing a pair of jeans that molded against him, Sidney had passed Claude's locker earlier while he was bent over to grab his math textbook from the bottom of his locker and lost his train of thought mid-sentence because of those jeans, and a Philadelphia Eagles home jersey. He had his head tipped back as he and Voracek laughed at something that had Simmonds looking incredibly smug.

"Boys," the librarian said, voice sharp and cutting.

"Sorry, Ms. Lance," Claude said. Sidney was a little offended by how quickly the librarians smile smoothed out when Claude smiled at her. He knew how charming Claude's smile was, but Flower's was pretty nice too and that had only made her angrier at them.

"Just be a little quieter while your here."

"Yes ma'am," Claude said, flashing her one final smile and a small wave as Streit led the group to a table in the corner of the library.

"Well," Flower said, forcing Sidney to tear his gaze away from his boyfriend's ass. "I'm certainly not going to miss sharing a school with the Flyers."

Sidney didn't agree. He was really going to miss the ability to see his boyfriend outside of carefully planned weekends, would miss catching glimpses of Claude between classes or hearing Claude's voice echoing through the rink during hockey practice.

"Come on," Sidney said, instead of explaining any of that. "We've only got thirty minutes left and you really need to finish that essay."

* * *

Sidney's friends weren't the only people that he'd neglected to tell about his application to Penn State. He'd talked to his parents about it a bit so they could figure out how much they needed to set aside for application fees, but other than that he hadn't really told anyone about Penn State.

He hadn't even told Claude about it yet.

He hadn't chosen the school solely so he could stay close to Claude, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a huge factor in his decision to apply. Claude had always supported Sidney and pushed him to do his best, so Sidney knew Claude would see the fact that he'd influenced Sidney's choice before the fact that Penn State was a genuinely good school.

He knew he had to talk to Claude about it soon, he just wasn't eager to face off against Claude's stubborn steak and convince him that he was applying to Penn State because he wanted to.

Sidney hadn't told anyone but his parents about Penn State because he felt like he should tell Claude first. But every-time he thought about telling Claude, he shied away from it.

The problem wasn't just that Claude would think he was holding Sidney back, but that Claude may not want Sidney that close to him.

It was stupid because Sidney knew how much Claude loved him and he knew what he had with Claude was going to last, but there was this bone deep fear with telling your high school sweetheart that you wanted to stay close to them for college. There was this sinking weight in his gut that kept him from doing it, that kept whispering that maybe Claude didn't want Sidney close to him for school, that kept whispering that maybe Claude was sick of him and couldn't wait until Sidney was away at college.

His anxiety had decided to completely ignore the worries that most kids had about college, about not getting in or not fitting in once they got there, and latched every insecurity Sidney had ever had about his relationship with Claude.

Sidney hated it, but he didn't know how to get over it and just tell Claude about his application to Penn State.

So instead, Sidney made it to November without telling anyone but his parents what his top choice school was. 

* * *

"Hey, have you finished up your applications yet?"

Sidney and Claude were in Sidney's room after school. Claude was lying stomach down on Sidney's bed, dressed in grey sweater with his name across the back and black shorts, with his laptop open in front of him. All of the wiggling he'd done to get comfortable had resulted in his shorts sliding up to show off his thighs and his sweater pushed up to reveal a small strip of skin at his waist. Sidney was lying with his pillows propped up against his headboard and his back against his pillows. His legs were stretched out in front of him, one leg thrown over one of Claude's, and the book he was reading was held in his hands.

"What?" Sidney asked, having been a little too focused on the paragraph he was reading to catch Claude's sentence the first time.

"Have you finished your college applications yet?" Claude said. "Simmer just made a facebook post about finishing his and I realized that I haven't heard how yours are going yet."

"I'm mostly done," Sidney said. "I've just got one left."

"That's good," Claude said. "Where all did you apply to?"

Sidney felt the familiar anxiety raise in his gut. At the same time though, he knew that if he didn't tell Claude right now then he probably wouldn't ever tell Claude because the chance being set up in front of him was one that was absolutely perfect for what he needed to do. Even knowing that, knowing that Claude was bound to find out and it would only be worse when he realized Sidney hadn't told him when he'd asked, the whisper of fear in Sidney's head had him saying, "I don't know. There were a few of them."

Claude hummed, eyes focused on his facebook feed as he schooled through it. "Let me know okay? I wanna look and see what I have to do to get accepted."

"What?" Sidney said, the word slipping out of his mouth without much thought.

"I need to know what schools your applying to so that I can look at what I need to do," Claude repeated. "My grades are okay, so I think I should be able to get into most schools you would apply too but I want to check average ACT scores on them so I know what to aim for."

"You want to go to college with me?"

"Of course I do." There was a brief pause before Claude looked over his shoulder, a frown on his face and worry in his eyes. "Did you not want to?"

"Of course I did," Sidney said. He hadn't really thought about it before. He'd been so wrapped up in this year and the idea that Claude wouldn't want to be with him for even that long that he hadn't thought about the future. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around Claude's ankle and squeezing since Claude was too far away from him to lean over and kiss. "I just didn't know you wanted to. I'm glad you do, though."

"Alright then," Claude said. The frown on his face faded away to a small smile. "So make me a list soon?"

"Aye aye, Captain," Sidney answered. He gave Claude's ankle another quick squeeze, though this one was more for him than for Claude. It was easier to find his words when he was touching Claude, comforted by the reassurance that came with the warmth of Claude's skin. "Penn State's my top choice right now. Would you be okay with going there?"

"I could get behind Penn State," Claude said, nodding a little bit as he turned his attention back to the laptop screen. "Are you sure that's where you wanna go? Not a bigger hockey school?"

"Yeah," Sidney said. As big as a relief as it was to know that Claude wanted to go to school with him, Claude was a year younger. They would still be separated for a year if Sidney didn't go to school around them. "I'm sure."

"Okay." Claude kicked his foot, shaking off Sidney's grasp. "I should get going soon, you know?"

Sidney smiled a little bit, knowing that with how comfortable Claude was stretched out on his bed that Claude wasn't going anywhere anytime soon even if he should have been getting ready to leave.

"Let me finish two more chapters," Sidney said. It would give Claude time to decide whether he was actually going to get up to leave or if he was to comfortable for that and was just going to stay for dinner instead. "Then I'll be done with this section and I can drive you home."

"Mmmm." Sidney resisted the urge to laugh. It was cute how Claude was acting as though he hadn't already made his mind up. They did this little dance at least once a week and Claude's answer was always the same. "Okay. Let me know when your done."

"Will do," Sidney agreed.

The mood in the bedroom had always been soft and warm, filled with the casual affection that came with sitting with someone you loved while you were both doing your own thing, but the reassurance that the conversation had given Sidney had him feeling it even more intensely.

Pleased and filled with love for his boyfriend, Sidney couldn't help the smile that fixed itself on his lips as he returned to reading his book. 

* * *

November passed by slowly. Hours at school seemed so much longer then sixty minutes as everyone dragged their feet, anticipating Thanksgiving and the break that came with it. They'd gotten lucky this year and had the Wednesday before as well as the Friday after. A five-day weekend was a rare treat that all of them too excited to pay much attention to their school work as the break approached.

Sidney spent the night at Tanger's house with Flower and Geno one day. The four of them weren't usually allowed to have sleepovers on weekdays, but they'd had a Calculus test the next day and their parents had said it was alright as long as they were studying. They ended up studying for a little over an hour before they tossed their books aside in favor of grabbing the xbox controllers and playing a few rounds of NHL as they shoved their faces full of the pizza his mother had bought for them. One day his conditioning class, all athletes were required to take the course, went outside to enjoy the weather before it got too cold. The coach teaching the class, each of the coaches for the schools major teams took an hour so that they could offer it every period and Sidney had ended up with one of the football coaches instead of Sullivan, had the remote for the stereo in the concession stand. Sidney spent the hour laughing as Beau dragged Olli into obnoxious off-key renditions of everything from Carrie Underwood to Rae Sremmurd. One day, he spent an entire period of Personal Finance letting Vero doodle on his arm with a sharpie. As their teacher played a Dave Ramsey video on how to avoid getting too far into debt, Sidney and Vero whispered about what kind of flowers she should draw on the vine spanning from his wrist to his elbow.

The way he spent his time at school was influenced by the upcoming break, but the way he spent his time with Claude was being influenced by the approaching winter.

Whereas before they'd go out for ice cream or eat at small food trucks, now when the two of them went out they tended to lean towards cozy cafes. They'd come in with cheeks bitten red from the chill that had started invading the air. Sidney would order something mildly sweet - a chocolate mocha or peppermint hot chocolate - while Claude ordered something with so much syrup pumped into it that Sidney wasn't even sure it was coffee anymore. Usually they got something to eat too, Claude crouching down in front of the pastry display case and picking out whatever dessert looked the most delicious. When they had all of their stuff, they'd sit down at a table, cradling their drinks in their hands and alternating bits of their cake while they talked. When the two of them didn't go out, Claude had a habit of burrowing himself down in Sidney's blankets the second they got into the bedroom. More then once, Claude ripped the comforter off Sidney's bed in order to wrap it around his shoulders as they went out into the living to play a game or into the kitchen to grab snacks. They always slept pretty tangled together, but in the summers Claude always had some token protest about it being too hot to cuddle. Now Claude would let out a soft content sigh when Sidney wrapped his arms around him and tugged him into his chest.

Sidney liked waking up with Claude in his arms, his back against Sidney's chest, and their legs tangled together so he considered November a success.

* * *

The bell rang over head and the room filled with noise as the students all rose from their seats.

"Do you think I could convince Mr. Todd that I need to be put in the foreign English class?" Tanger said as he stood up, grabbing his backpack off the ground and his paper off his desk. It was their last day of school before their long weekend and they'd spent the class period writing essays on the book they'd just finished. "I mean, French is my first language."

"You've been speaking English your entire life," Sidney pointed out, shaking his head a bit in amusement. Tanger sat in the desk in front of him, so Sidney grabbed his own paper off his desk and his way down the row behind him. "Why are you so convinced you need to switch classes?"

"Because I bullshitted this entire essay," Tanger answered. "I spent an entire hour on it and I have absolutely no idea what I just wrote."

"Well, Kristopher," Mr. Todd said as Tanger reached the front of the class and handed him his paper, "maybe tomorrow you actually pay attention when we start reading Treasure Island instead of spending the entire period texting Ms. Leflamme the entire time."

"Jokes on you," Tanger said, walking past but turning so he was still looking at their teacher. Mr. Todd sent Sidney a small smile when he added his paper to the stack. "I don't text Catherine in this class. I text Flower."

Sidney laughed a little under his breath as he pushed Tanger ahead of him. The two of them had their free period next so they weren't really in a huge hurry, but they were supposed to be meeting the others so they could go off campus for lunch and Sidney didn't really see the point in making them wait.

As they emerged from the class room and out into the hallway, Sidney caught sight of Claude leaning against the wall on the other side of the hallway. He was wearing a bright orange Wells Fargo hockey hoodie, his favorite because the inside of it was soft and warm, and dark jeans. His hands were shoved into his jean pockets.

He'd known Claude had had class there, his statistics room being right across the hall from Sidney's English class room, but he was still a little surprised to see Claude waiting there. For a moment, he forgot that no one at school knew they were dating and thought that Claude was there to talk to him. Maybe to tell Sidney that his mother wanted to have Sidney over to dinner since they'd been spending so much time at Sidney's house or to tell Sidney about somewhere he wanted to go after hearing about it from his friends.

Sidney opened his mouth to say hello, but before he could get the words out Claude caught his eye and gave him a small smile. It was a small, barely there turn of his lips and the restraint in it was enough for Sidney to remember why it was that Claude hadn't already pushed off the wall to greet him.

"G," said someone behind him. The speaker pushed past him, shoulder bumping against Sidney's, and made their way over to Claude. "You waiting for me?"

Simmonds, Sidney realized. He'd forgotten that Claude's friend was in his class.

"Yeah, I figured we could walk to lunch together," Claude said, his smile spreading wider as he pushed off the wall he'd been leaning on. He fell into step with Simmonds as they made their way down the hall. Sidney felt a small jolt of jealousy at the fact that Simmonds got such a wide, genuine smile from Claude when he hadn't. Sidney and Tanger were walking a few people behind them, but he could still make out the conversation. "You said you guys had to do essay writing today, right?"

"Yeah. Kind of surprised you remember."

Claude gave a one shouldered shrug. "So, how was it?"

"Pretty good," Simmonds replied with a small shrug. "He gave us a few prompts to pick some. I picked the one I knew I could do the best on and went with it. I think it's going to turn out pretty well."

Sidney heard Tanger let out a groan beside him and glanced at him.

"Great," Tanger said, sighing a bit as he spoke. "First the Flyers invade the school and now they're doing better than I am in it."

"You'd be doing okay if you followed Mr. Todd's advice," Sidney said, bumping his shoulder against his friend's. "Less texting, more reading."

* * *

Wanting to celebrate making it to their first major break of the year, Sidney and a group of his friends went out for a celebratory lunch at IHop.

They spread themselves out across the booths, chattering loudly among those at their table and twisting to say something to someone at a different one. Sidney ended up squeezed against the wall with Phil by his side and Horny and Hags across from them. He laughed over grape fruit juice as Horny tried to convince Kessel to drive him and Hags to the pet store after they ate. He kept resisting, saying that Hags had a car of his own, but Sidney could see him crumbling in the face of small puppies and soft bunnies. Beau and Sheary had ended up in the booth behind Sidney's with Olli and Tanger. When the food came, Sheary lifted himself up onto his knees and turned around. He reached between Sidney and Phil, stabbing his fork into Sidney's red velvet pancakes and stealing a bite for himself. As they were walking outside after paying the bill, Sidney had his wallet in his hand as he shoved his change into it but then he heard the familiar sound of feet pounding against the ground behind him. He dropped his wallet just in time to catch Flower when his friend jumped onto his back. The entire group laughed as Sidney groaned, his fingers digging into the meat of Flower's thighs to keep him up. Sidney was honestly just glad Flower had been the one to do it that time, because he wasn't sure he could take Geno slamming into his back.

While Sidney spent Tuesday afternoon with his friends, he spent the first day of the break with Claude.

Sidney went over to Claude's house pretty early in the morning, for Claude anyway because anytime before noon was early as far as he was concerned, with two cups of coffee in his hands. Claude answered the door, sleep rumbled and still wearing the stained sweatpants he'd slept in, and grabbed the cup Sidney held out to him without any word. Sidney wasn't phased by it, more than used to how nonverbal Claude was in the morning, and he followed Claude when the ginger turned to make his way back into the house. The two of them curled up on the couch together, Sidney leaning against the arm of the couch while Claude tucked himself into his side, and spent the rest of the morning watching all of the early morning cartoons they usually missed while they were in school. As Claude woke up, he started making quiet comments about their cartoons until he was awake enough to start arguing about the science behind the cartoons and Sidney suggested that they turn the xbox on instead. They spent most of the day like that, watching cartoons and playing video games, and even though it was a little more inactive then Sidney liked to be, Sidney didn't really have any complaints.

He couldn't do it all the time, but sometimes it was nice to just sit down and relax with Claude by his side. 

* * *

"Hi, Grandma," Sidney greeted, swooping down to give her a hug after Taylor stepped out of the way. His family had just arrived at his aunt's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Despite being a bunch of Canadians, enough of the family was living in America now that it made more sense to celebrate in November then October.

"Hello, love," his grandmother responded, reaching one arm up to wrap him in a hug. "How are you doing?"

"I'm good," Sidney said with a small smile. "I've been doing really well in school this year and the teams been doing pretty good too."

"That's great, honey," she said. As Sidney straightened up, she asked, "And what about Claude? Is he doing okay?"

A small, shy smile came over Sidney's face.

His grandmother had met Claude before summer break.

Sidney and Claude had stumbled into the house together. Sidney had taken Claude out to eat after they'd gotten out of their respective hockey practices. Afterwards, stuffed full of chicken tenders and french fries and milkshakes, they'd decided to go to Sidney's place to spend some time together before Claude had to go home to finish up a project he had due. Sidney's parents hadn't told him his grandparents were visiting that day, so the two of them had walked right into the living room where Sidney's parents were sitting on the couch with his grandparents as they talked about how Taylor had been doing in school.

Sidney had froze in shock, but he'd been snapped out of it by his grandmother telling him to hurry in and introduce his boyfriend to her. They'd spent the entire time Claude was there sitting in the living room being interrogated by his grandmother as she asked Claude questions about every detail of his life.

When Claude got up to leave, needing to get home in time for dinner, Sidney had been surprised to find his grandmother requesting a hug before he left. If that hadn't been confirmation enough that she was just as charmed by Claude as the rest of the family was, she went out of her way to say it when they were setting up dinner for themselves.

"Claude's good," Sidney said with a small smile. "There was a merger so we're going to the same school now."

"The two of you have been seeing more of each other than?"

"A little bit," Sidney agreed. "We're both pretty busy with school work though."

"Well, make sure you make time for him," his grandmother said. Reaching up, she set her hand on Sidney's cheek. "He's a good boy."

"He is," Sidney said with a small nod.

"Then make sure you appreciate and spend time with him," his grandmother added. "You don't want to lose him, love. He's a good one. The two of you are good _together_."

"I'll do my best not to," Sidney agreed.

"Good." She patted his cheek twice. "Now go say hello to your grandfather. You can tell me more about how Claude's doing once you've greeted everyone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Heyo everyone! Guess what I did before this chapter? I updated the outline to include some sad stuff!! But luckily, that's a few chapters from now. Hopefully rn everyone is just enjoying the fluff
> 
> 2) Aly, you ask, if the street names of this fic are places where they were born which are scattered around europe/north america and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are close enough to be merging schools, then how is Penn State also a thing? Um...I answer, because this fic exists in a warped version of America/Pennsylvania! 
> 
> 3) NEVER FORGET https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUjobzj0sg
> 
> 4) Paradoxes in this fic: the NHL players are all high school/college age but I specifically mentioned Carrie Underwood who is married to Mike Fisher from the Predators which raises questions about the age of Carrie Underwood in this au ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> 5) Unfortunately not a whole lot of Claude in this section since he got cut from the final bit.


	5. December

"Hey," Sidney greeted as he walked up to Hagelin's locker. Horny was leaning against the locker immediately to the left of Hags while Tanger was leaning against the one to the right. Olli was standing next to Tanger, looking around occasionally. Sidney figured Olli was the only one actually making sure they weren't bothering whoever the lockers belonged to. "What's going on?"

"Waiting for Hags to finish his hair before we head to class," Horny said. He glanced over at Sidney. "Where are you headed next?"

"English," Sidney said. He gestured to Tanger, "I'm picking him up so he doesn't try to skip."

"Why would I skip?" Tanger asked. "I enjoy my conversations with Mr. Todd far too much to skip his class."

"I enjoy watching him roast you too," Sidney answered.

"How dare you imply that I lose our verbal spars."

"I'm not implying anything," Sidney said. "I'm telling you."

As laughter rung out amongst the group, Tanger stuck his tongue out and flipped the middle finger of his left hand up.

Before any of them could say anything else, a girl shouted, "Claude! Hey!"

Sidney turned at the sound of his boyfriend's name, looking down the hallway to the area where Claude's locker was. Claude was standing by his locker. A girl with long copper curls was walking up to him.

Sidney couldn't hear what she was saying, but he saw the way she set her palm on Claude's bare arm and the way she tilted her head. Her lips, glossy pink with lipstick or gloss, were turned up in a small smile as she spoke and she looked at Claude from under long eyelashes. She was beautiful.

Her obvious flirting felt like a stone in Sidney's gut. His fingers curled around the edge of the binder in his hand, nails digging into plastic.

"Hags," Horny said, reaching out to poke his friend in the side. Sidney swallowed thickly as he tore his eyes away from the scene across the hall, looking over at his friends instead. He felt stupid for letting it effect him this much, she might have been flirting but Claude wasn't going to do anything back, but he couldn't help the jealousy settled deep in his gut. "It's happening again."

"What? Seriously?" Hags asked, glancing over his shoulder and down at Claude's locker. "Oh my god. How many is that?"

"Five or six?" Horny answered.

"That's amazing," Hags said. "I'm going to have to score more game winning goals if that's what it's going to be like."

"What are you two talking about?" Tanger asked.

"That!" Hagelin said, waving an arm in Claude's direction. "People have been coming up to him all day to congratulate him on the goal last night. Most of them just like clap him on the back, but there's been a few like that too."

"Seriously?" Sidney wished Tanger would shut up. He didn't want to stand here listening to Hags and Horny talk about how many people had come by to flirt with his boyfriend. "Five or six girls?"

"Five or six _people_ ," Horny corrected. "There were a few boys."

"What the hell?" Tanger questioned. "Sidney scores game winning goals all the time and there aren't any cute boys hitting on him after games."

"I don't want any cute boys hitting on me after games," Sidney said.

The worst part of this whole situation was that he understood why people were flirting with his boyfriend.. Claude usually reminded Sidney of sunshine, all bright hair and smiles, which was appealing in it's own right. Right now, though, Claude's lip was split and his knuckles were taped from fighting with Bergeron the night before. It was a look that Claude really knew how to make work.

On top of that, Claude had made an absolutely filthy overtime goal that had won the rough game for them. Really good hockey always made Sidney a little hot under the collar, something which Claude made fun of him for endlessly even though he frequently reaped the benefits of it, but Sidney figured it was the whole hero thing that the other kids in the school were attached to.

"The fact that you don't want them doesn't mean you don't deserve them," Tanger said.

Sidney opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get it out Olli spoke for the first time in the conversation, "The bells going to ring soon. We should head to class."

"Just give me one more second," Hagelin said, waving a hand behind him as he ducked back down to look in the mirror. He ran his fingers through his bangs, pushing them around.

"Oh my god," Horny groaned, voice exasperated. "Hags, come on. You've been messing with it for like three minutes. It's not going to get any better."

As the conversation shifted to making fun of Hagelin, Sidney glanced up and caught Olli's eye. There was a look on Olli's face that made it clear that he understood just how uncomfortable Sidney was even if he didn't understand why.

Sidney had never been more appreciative of Olli's presence in his life than he was in that moment. 

* * *

Sidney didn't see a lot of Claude in school, usually catching just a few quick glimpses, so naturally on that day he saw Claude around every corner.

When he was in the line for lunch, Claude passed the cafeteria with a girl Sidney didn't know walking next to him. Her hair was cut in a short blonde bob and her eyes were a shade of green that reminded Sidney of seafoam. She was walking so close to Claude that their shoulders were bumping. Every time Claude said something, she would let out a small laugh that reminded Sidney of bells.

During his free period he went to ask his calculus teacher for help on a problem from their homework, he passed the gym where Claude took conditioning. Claude was sitting on the ground with his legs open in front of him holding onto his left toe as he stretched. There was a boy that Sidney vaguely recognized as one of the players from the basketball team sitting in front of Claude, faced towards him, in the same position. His shoulders were broad and his arms muscular. There was a small flirtatious smile on his face as he chatted to Claude about something.

Later that day when Sidney was sitting in the locker room getting ready for practice, Voracek and Simmonds came in together. When Sidney looked towards them, he caught a glimpse of Claude standing on in the hallway. A girl with dark skin and thick, curly black hair was standing in front of him. She had one hand on Claude's bicep and a wide grin on her face as Claude spoke to her with passionate, sweeping hand gestures.

As the team was walking out into the parking lot after practice, a thin boy with sharp cheekbones and small lips that were spread in a smile that showed off perfectly straight, white teeth came running out calling Claude's nickname. Sidney watched from the drivers seat of his car as Claude came to a stop, turning to face the boy and smiling when he saw him. Sidney couldn't hear what they were talking about with Conor and Beau chatting loudly in his backseat and Flower insisting that he would leave Justin on the curb if he touched the stereo, but the boys eyes kept drifting down to Claude's lips.

Sidney felt stupid for noticing it each time, knowing that Claude would never cheat on him, but each time there was a swell of displeasure that blossomed in his gut.

He wasn't sure what annoyed him more - that they were touching Claude or that he wasn't. 

* * *

Claude let out a loud laugh as he fell against the bed.

The sound had a wide grin spreading over Sidney's face as he crawled up onto the bed. Claude laugh was one of his favorite sounds in the world.

Sidney moved so he was up on his hands and knees, hovering over Claude.

"You are so eager today," Claude said, voice amused. He reached up to wrap his arms around Sidney. He clasped his fingers together, resting his palms against the back of Sidney's neck. "Is the split lip really doing it for you?"

"You know it's not," Sidney chided, voice softening. He shifted his weight onto one hand, reaching up so he could set the other on Claude's hand. Cradling Claude's jaw in his palm, Sidney stretched his thumb out and set it on the side of Claude's lip so he wouldn't be touching the wound. "It's just hard not to be eager when there's a beautiful boy in my bed."

Claude said, lips dragging against the pad of Sidney's thumb as he did, "That was surprisingly smooth for you."

"What can I say?" Sidney murmured. Moving his thumb against Claude's lip in slow deliberate strokes, Sidney leaned down closer to him. "I find you kind of inspiring."

"I feel like you're quoting a book," Claude answered. His words were teasing and his tone amused, but there was a rough, low quality about them that Sidney knew from experience happened when Claude was getting worked up. "You are not this smooth. Your kind of a loser."

Humming quietly, Sidney moved his finger away and leaned down to press his lips against Claude's. They kissed for a while, slow and familiar. Claude unclasped his fingers, preferring to play with the short strands of hair at the back of Sidney's neck.

When they pulled away, Sidney moved so he was resting his forehead against Claude's. Lips hovering centimeters apart, he murmured, "Your loser though, right?"

"Yeah," Claude answered.

"What does that make you?"

"Your super awesome boyfriend."

Sidney let out a soft puff of laughter, leaning down to press a quick peck against Claude's lips. Something warm and pleased bloomed in his chest at hearing Claude call himself Sidney's after a day spent watching other people flirt with his boyfriend.

"Talented too," Sidney added. Turning he pressed a soft kiss to the sensitive skin right under Claude's ear. "That goal last night really was fantastic. I'm sorry I didn't get to tell you that before."

"It's okay," Claude answered. "You'll just have to make it up to me with a better reward."

"Ah," Sidney breathed, lips brushing against Claude's skin as he moved to trial a line of kisses against Claude's collarbone. "I suppose that's the least I could do, isn't it?"

* * *

The middle of December was always an awkward transition time. Once Christmas break was approaching and lessons were wrapping up, but they had to push through exams before that break could actually begin.

Sidney spent one period in Calculus getting his ass kicked in Uno by Geno, Flower, and Tanger who liked to play with stacking draws and the very next period frantically jotting formulas onto his exam cheat sheet. He spent one Personal Finance class working on a budget with Vero and the next one letting her sleep on his shoulder while their teacher played a video. He spent one lunch period trying to convince Beau and Sheary that it was not, in fact, a great idea for them to use dicks as their screen names in Kahoot and the next free period trying to peal the two of them away from their textbooks so they could actually eat instead of risking passing out during practice.

Sidney and Claude were pretty good about balancing their relationship with their school work. They'd spend their evenings together sitting at the kitchen table with their review sheets out. Sidney would hook his phone up to his speakers, setting it on the other end of the table they could listen to music as they worked. Sometimes Claude would ask Sidney for help on something he couldn't remember or was having trouble with. Sometimes Taylor would sit with them when they were taking a break, getting them to help her with flashcards for a math or reading test she had. Sometimes Sidney's father came home with treats for them, hot chocolates and pastries to make the studying a little easier on them.

When they'd both made an adequate amount of progress on their work, creeping slowly along their lists so they wouldn't have to cram it all in the night before exams, they'd curl up on the couch together to watch a movie. It was easy to relax and forget about exams when Sidney had Claude tucked into his side and an arm wrapped around his shoulders. 

* * *

"Okay, okay, everyone be quiet for a minute!" Sidney's father called.

There'd been a tradition since middle school that after the final game before Christmas break, Sidney's father would take them out for pizza.

Having finished their final game a little over half an hour ago, Sidney was sitting at one of the three tables they'd pushed together. Geno sat to his left while his father sat to his right at the head of the table. Most of the table was Sidney's teammates, but Catherine and Vero were there as well. Sheary had brought along his girlfriend, a sweet girl named Jordan who Sidney thought was way too good for him, and Geno had brought along his new girlfriend, Anna.

As the table followed Sidney's father's instructions, going quiet as he'd requested, Sidney's cheeks hurt from smiling so much and his chest was warm with affection. This was always one of his favorite nights of the year. It was nice to be with all of his friends, not worrying about anything except having fun and enjoying each others presence.

"We've gotta get our order straight before the waitress comes back," Troy said. "So one ham and pineapple, one ham, bacon, and mushroom, one cheese, and one vegetable pizza. All larges?"

"And wings!" Hagelin called out.

Troy nodded in his direction, "And a thing for wings for Hags and Horny. Anything else?"

They almost always ended up buying more pizza, half because they were a group of teenage athletes so their stomachs were black holes and half because they usually stuck around so long that they ended up wanting more food, but for now everyone shouted their agreement.

"Alright, continue being obnoxious," Troy said, waving his hand in dismissal.

There was a small burst of laughter before conversation picked up around the table.

"So," Geno said, catching Sidney's attention. He was leaned into Sidney's space, speaking softly. "You like Anna?"

Sidney was a little surprised Geno was asking with his girlfriend sitting right there, but when he leaned a little further he found that Anna was turned away from them and completely absorbed in a conversation she was having with Vero.

"Yeah," Sidney answered with a small nod. "I mean I haven't spent a lot of time with her, but she seems nice and she puts you in your place well enough."

"Why everyone I love so mean?" Geno questioned, pouting a bit.

Letting out a small laugh, Sidney bumped his shoulder against Geno's. "Shut up."

"Glad you like," Geno said, a note of seriousness in his voice that seemed strange. After a moment, Geno bumped their shoulders together again. "We find Sid boyfriend next, yeah?"

Sidney shook his head, opening his mouth to tell Geno that really wasn't necessary, only to be cut off by his father calling out, "Claude! Hi!"

Turning in his seat, Sidney found Claude was standing at the entrance to the pizzeria with a large group of Flyers and their girlfriends. What really caught Sidney's attention was the fact that Claude was giving a very pretty blonde girl a piggyback ride. She was beautiful, her hair was a dark blonde color and her lips a bright apple red, and Claude's hands were high on her thighs to keep her steady. Both of them had bright smiles on their faces.

"Come over here," Sidney's father said, waving a hand to gesture Claude towards them. "Bring your friends."

"What's your dad doing?" Tanger asked, raising an eyebrow at Sidney from across the table.

Sidney answered, "I have no idea."

His dad knew that his friends didn't know about his relationship with Claude, so he really didn't understand why his dad would be asking Claude and his friends to come over to see them.

Claude glanced around his friends, saying something to all of them, before the girl dropped off his back and the group made their way over to them.

"Hey Mr. Crosby," Claude greeted as they approached. He glanced over at Sidney for a brief moment, but quickly returned his face to Troy. "Everything going okay?"

"Yes," he said with a small nod. "These are the other guys from the team?"

"And their girlfriends, yeah," Claude said, sounding just as confused as Sidney felt. There was a brief pause before he introduced, moving his hand to gesture to them, "This is Jakub, Nicole, Brayden, Kelsey, Wayne, Crystal, Steve, Brittany, Sean, Laurence, Shayne, and Gina."

"Nice to meet you boys. You all need a good job today," Sidney's father said. Gesturing to Steve, he said, "You're Mason right? The goalie?"

Steve Mason's arm was wrapped around his girlfriend's waist and he gave her a startled look before he nodded. "Yes sir."

"You were really great today. You should be proud."

"Thank you sir."

Troy gave him a small smile before gesturing to the girl who Claude had been giving a piggy back rise, "And you weren't introduced. What's your name?"

"Jessica sir," the girl said. "I don't go to school with the others, though."

"Oh. Where do you go?"

"Gila River," Jessica said, giving the name of a college a few states away. "I graduated from Wells Fargo last year. My boyfriend was on the team last year, so I came to watch the game while I was in town. I figured I'd treat them to pizza for doing such a good job."

"Why don't you join us?" Troy suggested. "It's sort of a tradition that I treat Sidney's teammates to pizza for this game. Your boys are part of that team now."

Sidney felt a pulse of panic go through him. Turning he caught Claude's eyes.

There had been a look of shock on Claude's face, but when his eyes met Sidney's it fell almost instantly into a frown. There was silence for a minute as Claude's eyes flickered across Sidney's face, obviously searching for something.

When Claude spoke, his voice was filled with anger, "Thanks, Mr. Crosby, but I think we're going to pass."

Jessica turned to look at him, her eyebrows raising with shock. She must have gotten something from Claude's expression because after a moment she turned back to Troy, speaking with a hint of confusion, "We appreciate the offer, but Claude's right. I'm not in town very often so I'd like to spend time with them."

"I can understand that. I remember what it was like to be away from my friends my first year in college," Troy said.

There were some quick goodbyes before the group walked away, making their way over to a space where a waitress was shoving together some tables for them. As they walked away, Jessica placed her hand on Claude's upper arm and pulled Claude close to her. Sidney could see her mouth moving as she asked frantic questions.

"Are we already to order?" Looking away from the group, Sidney found their waitress was standing in between him and his father with a smile on her face and a pad of paper in her hand.

"I think so," Troy said. "But can you do me a favor and bring me the bill for the boys that just came in once they finish as well? Let their waitress know I'm make sure to tip her too."

"Yes sir." The girl jotted something down on her pad before looking back up, "Alright then. What are we having?"

* * *

Sidney didn't hear from Claude for the first few days of break.

It threw him for a loop, not just because he had been expecting to spend almost all of his time with Claude during break, but because he could tell Claude was angry with him and he couldn't figure out why. Even worse than not knowing was being the only one who didn't know because when he mentioned his parents that Claude hadn't texted him a while, his father had let out a quiet sarcastic 'I'm not surprised' and his mother had elbowed him in the gut. When Sidney had tried asking about it, his father had just shook his head and left the room. His mother had sighed at him and told him that he should think carefully about what he'd done recently that could've upset Claude.

Seeing as he'd already done that and was still empty handed, her advice wasn't really any more helpful than his fathers silence.

So Sidney spent the beginning of Christmas break looking at read but unanswered text messages and opened but unreplied to snapchats with his mind spinning in circles as he tried to figure out what he'd done.

When the first week had passed without him figuring it out, he sent Claude a message addressing the problem instead of trying to lull Claude into conversation with comments about the movies on TV or Claude's favorite video games.

_I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry. Can we please talk about this? I love you and I don't want to break up if that's what your trying to do._

It took Claude thirty minutes to reply.

Sidney spent the entire time with his heart beating rapidly in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. He felt like he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't blink. He just let the panic take over.

When Claude did reply, Sidney squeezed his eyes shut for a long time before he finally found the courage to open the messages.

_You're an idiot._

_I love you too._

_i'm coming over. Find the Island of Misfit Toys dvd._

When Claude got to Sidney's house, he was wearing an old oversized sweatshirt of Sidney's and looking like he hadn't slept since the last time they'd seen each other. Sidney wrapped him in his arms immediately, burying his nose in Claude's hair and squeezing him until he finally convinced himself that Claude was there with him.

They spent that day spooning on the couch, Sidney behind Claude with one arm slung over him while Claude twined their fingers together and their legs tangled together, and watching Christmas movies. Claude stayed through the day and into the night, making a quick phone call to his parents after dinner for permission to stay.

Sidney found it so much easier to fall asleep that night than he had in the past week.

They didn't talk about why Claude was upset with him. 

* * *

  
"Mom," Sidney called, poking his head into the kitchen. "Claude's here. We're gonna go to my bedroom."

"Nice try," Trina said, still looking down at the sauce pan she was stirring as Sidney attempted to escape. "Get in here."

Sidney let out a heavy sigh before stepping into the kitchen, gesturing for Claude to follow him in.

The two of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the doorway. Claude had only just gotten there so he was wearing a bright red hoodie and jeans as well as the black jacket he'd had thrown on over his outfit. On the other hand Sidney, having spent his entire day inside, was dressed in baggy grey sweatpants and a black tank top with the Star Wars logo across the chest. Sidney was pretty sure they made a funny picture standing together this way, but it made it easy for him to reach down and twine his fingers with Claude's.

"One second," his mother said, dragging the word out. After a moment, she straightened out and wiped her hands on her pants. She had a bright smile on her face as she turned to them, "Hi Claude. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Trina," Claude returned. They'd been dating long enough that Claude had long since dropped calling Sidney's parents Mr and Mrs. Crosby. Sidney didn't let go of Claude's hand when his mother stepped up to them, so when they hugged Claude just wrapped one arm around her. "Thanks for having me over so close to the holiday."

"It's no problem," she dismissed. As she released him, stepping backwards, she said, "Now I know it's two days early, but your Christmas present is under the tree. We'll pick one out for Sidney and Taylor after dinner so all three of you can open them together."

"You got me a present?" Claude said, his voice filled with surprise.

Sidney squeezed his hand when Claude looked back at him.

"Of course we did," Trina said. Smiling, she told him, "You're part of this family Claude. My son seems pretty intent on keeping you around, but even if you two broke up that wouldn't change. I'd just have to start taking you out for afternoon tea instead of coming home to find you two on the couch."

"Mom," Sidney hissed, half because he didn't like her mentioning them breaking up and half because he didn't really need to hear her gushing about how cute they were again.

His mom didn't look even a little bit apologetic as she returned to the stove, shaking her head, "Okay. I've said hello, you two can go now. I'm sure your eager to swap presents."

"Okay, bye," Sidney said. He gave a small tug, pulling Claude out of the room with him.

"Your dads going to be home in thirty minutes," Trina called after them as they left. "We're having dinner after that."

"Okay!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello! I feel like it's been forever since I wrote this fic but it's not even been a month? Time ~distortion~
> 
> 2) So an explanation on someone: You'll notice that the shit talking from the Penguins almost always comes from Tanger or Flower while you see the younger Penguins more accepting over them - wanting to ask for Ghost to help them with Math or such. So this mostly because I think Tanger and Flower are 1) incredible balls of anger, 2) totally holding grudges and 3) have a lot more history with Sidney/the Flyers then the younger guys do. 
> 
> 3) You'll also notice that Sidney has a wider range of friends than Claude does. This is because this story is from Sidney's perspective so he doesn't actively see Claude with all of his friends. 
> 
> 4) I don't know if it's obvious but my aim here is: gay Sidney, bi Claude? 
> 
> 5) Sidney in this fic for most oblivious but also biggest asshole 
> 
> 6) The pizza scene got far too long and out of control lol. 
> 
> 7) For anyone who didn't get it: Jessica is Jessica Schenn. She's married to Luke Schenn who was a Flyer but got traded to Arizona. Hence why she goes to college at Gila River which is Arizona's arena. 
> 
> 8) Final scene is very short to make up for the very long pizza scene.


	6. January

Sidney had only just stepped out of his car when he felt large arms wrap around him.

"Sid!" Geno cried, his voice loud and happy in Sidney's ear as he hugged him.

"Hey G," Sidney greeted. He felt a smile spread across his face as he reached up to wrap his arms around Geno in return. "Did you have a good time in Russia?"

"Nice to see grandparents," Geno said. "But weeks in Russia with only Sasha to hang out with? Very annoying. Glad to be back with you guys instead of listening to him."

"I'm sure Ovi is saying the same thing about you."

"Why would he?" Geno questioned as he pulled away. "I'm nowhere near as annoying as Sasha."

"If that's what you think," Sidney said, laughing affectionately as he shook his head.

Most of their group had been around for Winter break. He, Flower, and Tanger had met up with Duper and Kuni, the two of them home from college for the holidays, for a video game night on a day when the snow had come down particularly hard. They'd piled together on the couch and spent the night eating junk food as they flipped between Mario Party and Mario Kart and Super Smash bros. Sidney had driven through the Christmas lights at the fairgrounds with the sophomores. They spent that night singing obnoxiously to Christmas music and arguing about the names of Santa's reindeer. He'd gone to breakfast with Kessel and Bonino for breakfast on New Years. They'd all been at separate parties the night before - Sidney wasn't sure where Kessel and Bonino had been but he'd spent the night getting drunk with Claude in his basement since his parents had gone to a party and Taylor was staying with a friend - but they'd met up in the morning. They'd gorged on greasy hash browns and fluffy pancakes while bitching about their headaches.

Some of them had spent Winter break out of town though. Geno spent Christmas break in Russia with his grandparents, settling for celebrating a western Christmas since he needed to be back for school before the Russian one. Olli's older brother had a life in Finland that he hadn't been willing to leave when Olli and their parents moved to America, so Olli had spent the break sleeping on his brothers couch and playing with his nephew in Jyväskylä. Horny and Hagelin had both gone back to Sweden with their respective families, but had managed to find a way to spend majority of their time with each other anyway.

When Geno and Sidney separated though, he could see his friends gathered at the fence.

Hags was talking to Kessel and Bonino. Vero was standing with them, braiding strands of Hags hair and occasionally adding comments to the conversation. Tanger and Flower were speaking to Olli. The two of them were making wide, sweeping hand gestures that had Olli watching them with a small amused smile. The Sophomores were gathered around Horny. Whatever they were discussing seemed to have Beau's entire body vibrating with excitement.

He was happy to see them all again.

There were certainly times when he wanted to strangle them, but at the end of the day they were his best friends and he loved them. He'd missed them.

"Claude!"

Sidney looked away from his friends, turning his head to see who had called his boyfriends name.

He caught sight of Claude just in time to see Voracek jump at him. Claude stumbled under the sudden weight a second, but when he had the two of them stable he wrapped his arms around Voracek. Sidney could hear the two of them laughing, loud and happy and excited.

The vast majority of Claude's friends had been around for break - Danny Briere had come back from University and whenever Cluade wasn't with Sidney he'd been with him - but Jake had been in the Czech Republic with his family. Geno was one of Sidney's closest friends, but he'd still had Tanger and Flower with him. Claude had had Simmonds and Schenn, but he wasn't close to them the way he was to Jake. Having Danny around had helped a bit since Danny occupied the same part of his heart that Jake did, but Claude had grown used to having Danny away and having Jake away was a bigger hit.

So Sidney couldn't help smiling a bit as he watched Claude hug his best friend. Claude hadn't been unhappy with Jake gone - Claude had been happy with Sidney and happy with his other friends - but he was absolutely ecstatic now.

His eyes were drawn away from Claude by a heavy sigh.

He looked over at Geno, raising one eyebrow.

"Sasha is very annoying," Geno said, "but think I would still rather be in school with Sasha than them."

Sidney resisted the urge to sigh himself.

Instead he set his palm on Geno's back and gave him a small push towards their friends. "Come on, G. I wanna say hi to the others."

* * *

Sidney had spent the vast majority of his winter break with Claude.

They'd spent a lot of their afternoons skating around the pond in the forest behind Sidney's house. Nothing serious, just the two of them enjoying the feeling of the ice under their feet without any real competition. Claude would skate lazy circles around Sidney as Sidney took shots, switching backward and forward as he chatted about whatever was on his mind. Sidney would crouch in the net when Claude was taking shots, being the worlds worse goalie. Sometimes Claude would bump his hip against Sidney's and Sidney would return the gesture until it had devolved into the two of them chasing each other around the ice or lying on it in each others arms after one of them tackled the other.

They both loved hockey, but occasionally they needed a day without it so they'd spend the afternoons doing something inside. Sometimes one of them would sit on the couch to play a video game while the other watched. Sidney wasn't much for shooters so some afternoons, Claude would set himself on Sidney's lap as he ran through levels of Call of Duty. Sometimes Sidney would load up Stardew Valley and Claude would settle against Sidney's side with a laptop so he could tell Sidney what fish were where and what whoever he was romancing wanted as a gift. Sometimes they loaded up something they could play together, spending their time chirping each other as they played NHL or FIFA.

In the evenings the two of them had a tendency to wrap themselves around each other. Sometimes it was out in the living room. They would play board games with their families, depending on whose house they were at, and the two of them would lie on the floor together. One of them on their stomach and the other leaning against their side. Sometimes it was in one of their bedrooms. They'd lay on the bed with one of their heads on the others shoulder or curl together with their foreheads touching and their knees knocking. Nights like that were spent playing with fingers and hair as they chatted.

They didn't get to spend every morning together, both of their parents joking that they hadn't actually ever told the boys they could move in together, but the ones they did spend together were lazy and relaxed. They'd spend as much time as they could in bed. Sidney would watch Claude play games until Claude got so frustrated with whatever he was playing and Sidney laughing at his failure that he forced Sidney to play instead. Sometimes they'd end up turning on the TV and watching kids showed. Claude had a fondness for Jake and the Neverland Pirates while Sidney loved Paw Patrol as much as he loved real dogs.

Usually their mornings were interrupted by the smell of one of their parents making breakfast, or their stomachs rumbling when everyone was at work, but a few times Taylor had crashed into Sidney's bedroom for attention because they were taking too long or Isabelle came in to Claude's room with the sole intention of ruining their morning.

It had been nice though.

As much as Sidney loved having his friends around again, it took him a few days to adjust to splitting his time between his friends and Claude again.

He knew he couldn't be around Claude all the time, but that didn't stop him from wanting to.

Sometimes he thought about telling his friends about Claude, but in the end he always decided that the risk was too much.

He didn't want to rock the boat when they were all so close to graduation. He just wanted to enjoy the final few months when they would all be readily available to each other.

He'd tell everyone eventually, but things were working right now. Everyone was happy.

There was no reason to change that.

* * *

"You know this is my house right?" Claude said.

"I do," Sidney said, a little amused. He was leading Claude through the hallways, his hands over Claude's eyes. "That doesn't mean I can't surprise you in it."

"Yes it does," Claude answered. "I've been with you the entire time you've been here."

Sidney hummed softly, not wanting to give anything up.

"Where are we even going?" Claude asked. "This house isn't that big."

"The kitchen."

"And we're not there yet?"

"We are," Sidney said, stopping them in front of the Giroux's kitchen table. He tilted his head so he could press a kiss against Claude's temple. He murmured against the skin there, "Happy Birthday." His hands drop from Claude's eyes. Not quite wanting to let go of him yet, Sidney let his hands slip down so he was holding Claude at the hips instead.

Claude was quiet for a moment as he took in the simple set up on the table.

There was a circular cake sitting in the center of the table. There was a thin bottom layer of chocolate cake followed by a chocolate mousse with strawberries that had been cut in half spread throughout it. Over the mousse was a thin layer of chocolate frosting. Topping the cake was a collection of full strawberries and chocolate shavings. Resting against the toppings was a small, brown, oval panel that read "Happy Birthday, Claude". To the side of the cake were three gifts wrapped in shiny red paper.

"The gifts aren't all from me," Sidney said. "One of them is, but my parents and Taylor got you something too. I told them I'd bring them over."

"I'll make sure to thank them next time I'm over," Claude said. "What did you me?"

Sidney laughed a bit, shaking his head. "You'll see when you open it."

"Sid," Claude said. He gestured with one hand towards the gift pile, "It's right there. There's no reason not to tell me now."

"You'll see when you open it," Sidney repeated. His gift to Claude was a small golden chain with nothing on it. He liked the idea of having some kind of jewelry shared between them, but rings couldn't be worn on the ice and he wasn't sure Claude would want a cross like his. A chain could be worn no matter where they were, tucked into shirts and metal cold against their skin.

"You're the worse," Claude said, though the words were lacking heat. "Are you actually going to eat any of the cake? Or do I have to do it all by myself?"

"I'll eat a slice or two," Sidney said. "It's got fruit in it."

Claude let out a small laugh. "Is that all it takes to get you off your diet? A little bit of fruit with the sugar?"

"On my boyfriends birthday? Yeah," Sidney answered.

Claude hummed softly. Reaching down, he took Sidney's hands off his hips. He twined their fingers together and lifted one of Sidney's hands to his mouth. He pressed a small kiss against the back of his hand.

"Thank you," Claude said. "You didn't have to do all of this."

"Didn't have to," Sidney agreed, "but I wanted to."

* * *

Generally Sidney didn't worry about their friends seeing him with Claude when they were out on dates.

They lived in a big city and Claude lived on a different side of town then Sidney, over where Wells Fargo had been. The rivalry between the two schools had been so intense that the two teams just stuck to the area around them, having more then enough to keep them occupied without risking a good time being ruined by a stupid fight. Sidney had places he liked around his house, but considering that he was usually the one to pick Claude up - Claude hadn't had a license when they first started dating and even now that he did he hated doing it unless it was necessary - it was just more convenient to stay around Claude's place.

There was a small chance they'd bump into Claude's friends, but it'd never happened so the possibility had slipped to the back of his mind.

Apparently he should have been more aware of it because once they reached mid-January it felt like every time they went somewhere together they had to dodge their friends.

The two of them went to their favorite diner by Claude's house, a small place call Lori's that they frequented, and Sidney was about to suggest splitting a piece of pie when he saw Gostisbehere walking down the sidewalk with a girl Sidney vaguely recognized as his sister. They were looking across at something across the street as they walked, Felicia pointing and making wide hand gestures, so they passed the diner window without so much as a glance, but Sidney's appetite soured. When Claude held the pie menu up, an expectant look on his face, Sidney just shook his head and suggested flagging the waitress down for the check. He was so busy glancing back out the window that he missed the way Claude's lips turned in a deep frown.

They were walking around the mall, Claude had ripped his jacket open on a branch a few days ago and Sidney needed stick-tape, when Sidney saw Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom sitting in the food court. Backstrom was looking down at his phone while Ovechkin was talking at him with wide sweeping hand gestures. Sidney had been around them enough to know that Backstrom was paying attention to Ovechkin even if it looked like he wasn't. Even knowing that they were focused on each other, because Backstrom and Ovechkin had this kind of magnetic pull that made it clear they were always focused on each other, Sidney felt a pang of fear when he saw them. For all that Geno complained about Alex, Sidney knew that he considered him one of his dearest friends and that they talked regularly. If Ovechkin looked over and saw him with Claude, saw them holding hands and walking shoulder to shoulder, it would get back to Geno in no time at all. Sidney dropped Claude's hand and put a little distance between them. When he steered Claude towards the sports store, careful not to touch him, he was careful not to touch him. He missed the way Claude looked over his shoulder as he followed Sidney and the way his face set in a frown when he caught something behind them.

They had just walked out of the movie theater, both of their cheeks being bitten red by the cold but a giant smile on Claude's face as he chattered excitedly about the movie, when Sidney heard a familiar voice. Confused, he looked away from Claude and around the crowd of people making their way out of the theater. It took him a minute before his eyes caught on Horny and Hags coming out of the theater together. Once Sidney was focusing on them it was easy to hear their conversation, the two of them speaking loudly and energetically, about a different movie than the one he and Claude had seen. Sidney spent the rest of the walk to his car splitting his attention between them and Claude, trying to be sure Horny and Hags weren't parked anywhere near him. He was so distracted that he didn't notice the way Claude's voice was gradually losing its excitement and tinting with something darker.

* * *

Sidney tapped his pencil against his lip, eyes focused on his laptop and the revision he was doing on his essay.

Sullivan had banished the team to the library for their weekly study session. A few of the guys had tried to get out of it since the semester had just started, but Sullivan had stood firm in his decision that study sessions were mandatory. The semester had just started, he said, but the material was the result of everything they'd learned last semester so it was only getting more difficult not easier.

Sidney agreed with him. He knew that some of the guys had been struggling prior to exams, they wouldn't be doing any better now when their grades still depended on understanding the previous material.

"Sid," Beau whined. Sidney looked over the top of the screen to find Beau looking at him with a look of utter confusion and loss in his eyes. "Can you give me a hand?"

"I can try," Sidney offered. He added, "Physics wasn't my best subject even when I was in it though."

"You pass though right?" Beau said. He started shuffling his papers together, tossing his worksheets between the pages of his textbook that he'd been looking at.

"Well yeah," Sidney answered. "That doesn't mean I remember it."

"Yeah but you knew it at some point," Beau said. "Which is farther than I am right now given that I don't know it at all."

"Why don't you just ask Ghost?" Sheary asked. He was sitting opposite Sidney, in-between Beau and Schultz. The school gave them the choice between physics or chemistry, so while Beau was worried about his physics work Sheary had his notes from his last chem lab in front of him as he worked on his write up. "Did you say the other day that he's the only person that got an A on your test the other day?"

"Because Beau isn't a giant traitor," Tanger said from Sidney's left. Sidney thought Tanger was ridiculous, but he couldn't help laughing when Tanger bunched the rough draft of his essay up and launched it at Sheary. "He knows it'd be better to ask Sidney than a Flyer."

"There aren't any Flyers anymore. We're all Penguins," Sidney said, speaking on auto-pilot more than anything else.

He felt like he said that all the time now days. No matter how many times he said it, the others didn't seem to believe it. He was starting to feel the way they were. It felt like the divide between the two teams was bigger now that they were in the same building than it'd ever been when they were separated.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Sidney looked around the room.

His eyes caught on Claude almost immediately. He was sitting with Voracek, Schenn, Simmonds, Gostisbehere, and Couturier. The tables weren't made to accommodate that many people, but rather than shoving more tables together like Sidney and his friends had done the group of them had shoved their chairs in so they were all practically on top of each other. Their binders and papers and pens were scattered across the table. Everything was thrown on top of other things, leaving just corners and the areas they were using open.

The group of them were talking loudly. Schenn was turned around, shooting a rubber band at Mason who sat at a nearby table with a bunch of others. Simmonds was lifted out of his seat, reaching across the table to point something out to Voracek on one of the textbooks. Couturier was holding one of his textbooks up, pointing at a picture on the page, and Claude had lifted out of his seat just enough to see over Simmonds. Gostisbehere had his head tucked down as he scribbled down answers for whatever he was working on, but there was a small amused smile on his lips.  
  
It was chaos, but it was the kind of chaos Sidney had come to associate with the Flyers.

It was the kind of chaos that Sidney knew Claude thrived in. He didn't always understand it, but there was a bright smile on Claude's lips and a happy glittering in his eyes that Sidney hadn't seen in ages.

The Flyers and Penguins weren't a team yet, but Sidney had to have faith that they would be one day. Then he would be able to sit there with Claude. He didn't necessarily want to be apart of the chaos, but he wanted to be able to sit next to Claude and hold his hand while he was smiling like that.

"Grades are more important than your grudges," Sidney said. He inclined his head towards Claude's table, "Sunshine, go ask Ghost for help. That's the whole reason we have these study sessions."

He couldn't do that yet, but one day.

* * *

It wasn't as bad as it had been in the beginning of Christmas break, but Sidney noticed that Claude seemed to be avoiding him in the last few weeks of January. It was subtle, but it was there. The slightest difference in Claude's attitude that implied that while Claude wasn't out right avoiding him, he wasn't as eager to go out as he usually was.

Texts went unanswered for thirty minutes, an hour, two when before Sidney could expect an answer relatively quickly. Claude stopped suggesting places where they could go out, accepting invitations for dates when Sidney extended them but never suggesting them himself. Suddenly no matter where they were it was Sidney who had to initiate contact. Claude wouldn't even reach for Sidney's hand, much less kiss him.

Sidney worried about it.

He spent breaks between text messages biting his lip and replaying everything he'd done that day in case he'd said something that would obviously anger Claude. He'd ask Claude where he wanted to go when they made plans, but Claude always passed the decision off on him. He started being more aware of how and when he was touching Claude, watching for any sign that Claude didn't want his hand on his lower back or that he didn't like the implication when Sidney was leaning in for a kiss.

No matter how long Sidney spent thinking about it, though, he couldn't figure out what had set it off. He didn't know what he'd done to have Claude pulling away from him like this.

He was too afraid of losing Claude to ask.

* * *

"Grilled cheese, grilled cheese, grilled cheese," Claude and Taylor chanted together. Claude was sitting in one of the chairs at the table, banging one fist against the table as he did so. Taylor was seated on one of his thighs, Claude's other arm around the nine year olds waist to keep her in place, patting her hands against her thighs in the same way Claude was banging the table. "Grilled cheese, grilled cheese, grilled cheese."

"Nope," Sidney said, shaking his head as he opened the refrigerator. "Absolutely not."

The three of them were in the Crosby's kitchen on a Saturday night. Sidney's parents were out on a date. leaving him to take care of Taylor for the night. Claude and Sidney had both spent the previous weekend with their friends, Claude had stayed at Danny's since he'd left for college again that week while Sidney spent his afternoons with Geno, so their parents had given them permission to stay with each other this weekend.

"Why not?" Taylor whined.

"Because mom would kill me if I fed you grilled cheese instead of a real dinner," Sidney said. Looking over his shoulder so he caught Claude's gaze, he added, "And I know for a fact you've had three this week."

Claude shrugged, looking unfazed by Sidney's accusation, "I like grilled cheese."

"You're an athlete," Sidney said. "You need to eat healthy."

"Grilled cheese has two of the major food groups," Claude said. "Three if I add bacon or ham."

"Does that mean it's healthy enough for dinner?" Taylor asked.

Before Claude could answer her, Sidney said a sharp, " _No_." Turning back to the fridge, he told them, "You two can either give me a serious answer about what you want for dinner or I can pick."

"Noooooo," Taylor whined. "If you pick it's going to be broccoli or something and you won't even let me put cheese on it to make it taste better."

"Then you should stop talking about grilled cheese and pick something else, now shouldn't you?"

"Come on tater tot," Claude said. He jiggled his leg a bit, bouncing Taylor. "Let's pick something else out to eat before your brother decides to poison us."

"Vegetables are not poison," Sidney was quick to add. "And my mom is going to kill you if Taylor stops eating vegetables because you said that."

Claude just laughed in response. Ignoring Sidney, he asked Taylor, "What about chicken? With barbecue sauce over it?"

Sidney looked over at them when he didn't hear Taylor shoot down the idea immediately.

He found Taylor had her head craned back, looking up at Claude as she asked, "Do we have to have vegetables with it?"

"We do," Claude said. "Otherwise you aren't going to grow and you don't want to be as short as Sidney forever do you?"

"You're the same height as me," Sidney reminded him. He wasn't planning on making Taylor eat something she hated, he was going to make her eat a vegetable because that's what he was supposed to do as the one watching over her but he wasn't going to make her eat something she hated for her own food like his parents had to, but even if he was going to he wouldn't have been able to once he was looking at them. He loved his parents, but Taylor meant the world to him. The fact that Claude and Taylor so obviously adored each other was enough to make his heart melt and go all gooey feeling. "Why don't we have mashed potatoes with it, Taylor? We'll load them up with cheese and bacon and sour cream."

"Lots of cheese?"

Sidney nodded, "Lots of cheese."

"Alright," Claude said. He raised a hand up for Taylor to high five. "It's not grilled cheese, but it's still cheese so we win."

Taylor reached up, slapping her hand against Claude's with a wide grin. "We win!"

"You won this battle," Sidney agreed. Turning back to the fridge, he reached for the chicken in the fridge. "Now go grab your homework so you can finish it before we eat."

"But it's Saturday," Taylor said, voice disgruntled. "I have a whole 'nother day to do it!"

"Yeah," Claude said, "but if you do it now I can help you and you can spend all of tomorrow playing with Michelle."

"Promise?"

"No," Claude answered. Sidney saw him shaking his head when he turned, turning to place the chicken on the counter so he could "But I do promise I'll talk to your mom about it when she gets home and I'm sure she won't mind letting you play a little longer if she knows you were good today."

Taylor hummed, obviously considering how much she should trust Claude. It made Sidney smile a bit, just a small quirk of his lips.

"Alright," she said after a moment. She hopped off Claude's lap. "I'll go get my math homework."

Sidney waited until she'd left the room, disappearing around the corner on her way to grab her homework from her bedroom, before turning towards Claude.

Still smiling, a little amused and a little affectionate, Sidney crouched down in front of him. He set his palms on Claude's knees.

When their eyes met, Claude quirked an eyebrow in a silent question.

Sidney just smiled wider. He pushed himself forward so he could connect their lips.

They kissed for as long as they dared when the threat of Taylor coming back into the room was hanging over them.

Sidney nipped at Claude's lip when he pulled away, quick and playful.

"Mmm," Claude hummed. He swiped his tongue along his bottom lip. "What's that for?"

Sidney hummed, considering what to say. In the end he settled for shrugging, "No reason. I just love you."

"Well in that case," Claude leaned forward to press their lips together in a quick peck before murmuring against Sidney's lips, "I love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) I'm worried - as I always am when writing Geno - that I overdid Geno's broken English. Please let me know if it seems like too much so that I can go back and fix it! 
> 
> 3) I'm not sure if everyone has Christmas lights the way my down does? [This](http://www.experiencejackson.com/images/uploads/backgrounds/6443/nite-lites__small.jpg) is what the ones in my town looks like when you first go in. It's basically just like thirty minutes of listening to Christmas music and looking at pretty lights and just having really fun conversations with whoever goes with you.
> 
> 4) I don't know if Olli Maatta has an older brother?? He does in this fic tho ┐(︶▽︶)┌
> 
> 5) Fucking fight me if you think Sidney Crosby doesn't love farming dating sims. That boy is so wound up constantly that he would /love/ the chill of Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon. He'd just take care of his animals and gift his SO all the things. 
> 
> 6) I think every teenager secretly watches little kids shows and we just...don't talk about it? I mean there's nothing else to watch in the morning when your getting ready for school. 
> 
> 7) Do Sidney and Claude spend too much time at Sidney's house? I feel like everyone I know tends to stay at one persons house - there's always a friend who always ends up with people at their place and my sister & her boyfriends always comes to our place instead of theirs - but I could be wrong? Also this is Sidney's point of few so that affects it. Let me know how you feel about it?
> 
> 8) I had a lot of fun writing a Sidney/Claude/Taylor scene? I love writing the boys happy and in love, but I also love writing their families being a part of that? So it was fun to use at least one of my Sid/Claude fluff scenes for the boys with her. 
> 
> 9) On that note I am a little worried Taylor comes off a little younger here? Let me know if she acts younger than nine. 
> 
> 10) The transitions in this chapter feel so rough and I think it makes the chapter a bit choppy but I can't figure out /why/ or how to fix it. I'd love your guys opinions on it if you have any. 
> 
> 11) I tried to use some different Penguins than usual for this chapter but it ended up being the Hags-and-Horny show rather than "penguins other than geno and tanger and flower" show. Oops?
> 
> 12) Sidney is a huge fucking idiot in this chapter and I was constantly facepalming. 
> 
> 13) [Claude's birthday cake](http://omgchocolatedesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Strawberry-Chocolate-Cake-1.jpg)
> 
> 14) This is not my favorite chapter? But I hope you guys enjoy it?


	7. February

"Thanks for bringing me down here," Conor said. "I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem," Sidney dismissed with a shake of his head.

The two of them were walking around one of the shopping centers downtown. Sheary had asked Sidney for a ride so he could go pick up a Valentines present for Jordan. Sidney hadn't been doing much and he liked Conor, found being in the younger boys presence to be a bit like sitting in a ray of warm summer sunshine even when it was a dreary winter day, so he hadn't had a problem bringing him out.

"Do you know what you want to get her?" Sidney asked.

Conor hummed. He was turned away from Sidney as he peered into the window of one of the shops they were passing. "I don't know. I have a bit of money now that I've been working so I thought it would be nice to buy her something nice, but I'm not sure what she'd like."

Sidney hummed softly. He tilted his head back, trying to remember what he could about Jordan. Catherine and Veronique both used him as a means to tell Tanger and Flower what they wanted, flat out telling him what to make sure they were given when they were worried their boyfriends weren't getting their hints, but Jordan was new to their circle of friends. They didn't talk or spend as much time together. He liked her, though. She was a sweet girl and she and Conor were adorable together.

"That could be nice," Sidney said. "She always wears that charm bracelet that her father gave her, so maybe a necklace or earrings?"

"Yeah," Conor agreed. He looked away from the shop he'd been looking at, turning towards Sidney. "Do you know if there's a jewelry shop here? I've never really had to look for one here."

Sidney hummed, thinking about the area they were in. After a moment, he suggested, "I think there's a Kays here somewhere. I remember my mom buying something for Taylor there. It's not Tiffany's or anything, but it's nice jewelry and it'll probably be in your budget."

"That sounds fine," Conor said. "Should we look for a map then? See if we can figure out where it is?"

"Sure."

They walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, hands shoved in their pockets to protect from the bite of the chilly winter day.

Sidney had just spotted a map, opening his mouth to direct Sheary towards it, when someone called out, "Hey! Conor!"

Both of them turned towards the sound to find Travis Konency, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Claude walking towards them. Travis, a freshmen now but someone who had gone to Wells Fargo's middle school and gravitated naturally towards the Flyers, was leading towards Sidney and Conor.

"Hey," Conor greeted, a smile settling over his lips as he stepped forward to meet Travis. Sidney was a little surprised when they pulled each other in for a quick hug. He knew the younger guys didn't have as many problems with the Flyers as the older guys did, but he hadn't known they were close either. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Shopping for Valentines presents," Travis answered. As they stepped back, he said, "This is the only place in town with the Belgian chocolates that Gina likes so Ghost asked Claude for a ride and I tagged along so I could find Taylor something."

"All three of you Valentines shopping?" Conor asked. He glanced over at Claude, "I didn't know you had a girlfriend."

"I don't," Claude said. Sidney took a moment to look over Claude. He was wearing dark jeans with a blue and white stripped shirt. He'd thrown a dark jacket over the outfit, but left it open instead of zipping it up. The bottom of his jeans were tucked into black boots that stopped somewhere in the middle of his calf. He looked good with the winter wind blowing through his hair and the ends of his jacket stirring in the wind. "But I do have a boyfriend."

Sidney met Claude's eyes, silently asking what the hell he was doing.

"I didn't know that either," Conor corrected, barely even phased by the change.

"Yeah," Claude said, voice soft. There was something a little sad in his voice. He turned away from Sidney, breaking the contact between them. "You wouldn't."

An awkward silence settled over the group, everyone aware of that note in Claude's voice but unsure what to say about it.

Sidney saw Ghost look over at Claude, mouth set in something that was both knowing and considering. When he looked away from Claude, he broke the silence, "We should probably get going. We've still got some stuff to pick up and I've got to be home soon."

* * *

There was an odd feeling in the air between Sidney shopping trip with Conor and Valentines day.

Claude wasn't exactly ignoring Sidney, but he seemed more hesitate more when they were together. Sidney would ask Claude if he wanted to spend time together and it would take a while before Claude got back to him. Sidney would expect Claude to kiss him and Claude would take just long enough to do so that Sidney knew he'd debated it. They'd lie in bed together and Claude's touch would be tentative when he reached out for Sidney, regardless of whether he was throwing an arm around Sidney or just reaching to brush hair out of Sidney's face.

It reminded Sidney of when they'd first gotten together. When they'd been tentative in their interactions with each other, unsure how things were going to go between them.

Sidney didn't know what to make of it, but he didn't think it was anything good.

He didn't know how to handle it or what he was supposed to say to fix it.

He tried to draw Claude in when it seemed like he was pulling away. When he suggested things they could do together, he suggested things he knew Claude would like to do. When he saw Claude hesitating to kiss him, he would move forward to kiss Claude first. When they were lying in bed together and Claude seemed unsure, Sidney would shift them around so he would hold Claude instead of having Claude hold him.

Claude allowed each action. Sidney never saw a hint that Claude was uncomfortable with Sidney's touch, just like he was uncomfortable with initiating it.

It was like Claude was certain of how he felt about Sidney, but didn't know how Sidney felt about him. It was like he knew he loved Sidney, knew that he adored Sidney and welcomed touches by him, but like he didn't know if the feeling was returned.

It was like he was losing his faith in the fact that Sidney loved him.

* * *

"I got us a blanket," Sidney said as he stepped out onto the porch, shutting the sliding door behind him.

When he turned around, he found Claude was lounging in one of the deck chairs like he had been when Sidney had slipped inside. He was dressed in a pair of fuzzy black pajama pants with bright orange cats on them and an oversized sweatshirt. The chair was angled so Claude was somewhere between lying down and sitting straight. He had his knees in the air and a steaming mug of what Sidney knew was hot chocolate held in his hands.

Claude had been looking up at the sky, watching the stars, but when he heard Sidney he turned his head to look at him. A small smile fell over Claude's lips. "Thank you."

"No problem," Sidney dismissed.

It was Valentines Day. Sidney's parents were out of the house, his mother having booked them a table at his dad's favorite steakhouse and his father returning it with an invitation to go out dancing afterwards since they hadn't used their Tango lessons since their wedding, and they'd dropped Taylor off with a babysitter. It gave Sidney and Claude room to celebrate Valentines day at Sidney's house without interruption.

They'd spent the early portion of the evening cooking dinner together, chicken with a creamy pasta and mushrooms, while laughing. They'd been cooking with Claude's Ipod hooked up to the stereo and at one point they'd gotten so into a song that was playing that Sidney ended up flinging some of the sauce from his spoon to the walls. After they'd finished eating they made themselves hot chocolate and gone outside to look at the stars. It was chilly and the whole thing was almost too romantic, but neither of them minded that very much.

"Come on," Claude said. He scooted over in the chair so there was space next to him. "Sit with me."

Sidney didn't need to be asked twice.

He crossed the deck, squeezing himself into the small space Claude had left open for him. Neither of them were particularly big, but the chair was big and they were teenage athletes so they both had at least a bit more muscle then other boys so fitting themselves into the chair was a bit of a stretch.

Sidney was hardly opposed to plastering himself against Claude though.

It took them a moment to get settled, Claude shifting around until he had his arms wrapped around Sidney and his head pillowed on Sidney's chest. Sidney settled the blanket over them, a soft fuzzy thing covered in red and white stripes that his mother had bought for five dollars right after Christmas, before settling his arm over Claude's shoulders.

They were for a while, comfortable and wrapped up in each others presence.

Sidney thought about how easy this felt, how completely comfortable and at ease he was in this moment, and how he'd been struggling to figure out what was bothering Claude.

He didn't want to ruin the moment but....

"Claude," Sidney said, his voice soft as he broke the silence. Claude gave a quiet hum, acknowledging Sidney's statement. Sidney hesitated for a minute, wondering if he really wanted to bring this up now. Instead of directly questioning Claude's behavior like he'd been intending, Sidney said, "We're okay right?"

Claude took a deep breath. There was a pause before he nodded. "Yeah. We're fine." Sidney caught that pause clear as day but before he could say anything about it, Claude was shifting around. He craned his head back to see Sidney's face, "Hey, do you know any constellations?"

Sidney bit his lip for a moment before looking up at the sky. Maybe Valentines day wasn't the time to be bringing this up. He should just enjoy this moment with Claude. "No, but I could a few up and we could pretend I was right."

"Oh yeah?" Claude said, voice tinted with amusement and barely held in laughter. "Go for it then."

"Alright," Sidney said. He searched the sky before finding a cluster of stars, "Okay so that's Mothman."

* * *

Sidney didn't get a chance to bring it up after that because as they approached the end of the season, the tensions between the Flyers and Penguins seemed to become more obvious. It was clear that their team was going to win the division with ease, but that meant they were going to end up in conference playoffs. All of them wanted ice time during playoffs and the idea of being benched while people from the other team played didn't sit well with anyone. 

They had another study session, Coach Sullivan had made them weekly and mandatory for the rest of the semester to make sure no one risked being ineligible for playoffs, and when Beau got up to go ask Gostibehere for more help with Algebra Hagelin had actively pulled him back down into the seat to keep him from going over. During practice one day, Sidney had to hurry to slide between his teammates to stop a line brawl from breaking out when Voracek failed to break in time to avoid running into Flower during a scrimmage. No punches had been thrown, but there had been some particularly brutal words hurled across the ice until they managed to get everyone shoved to opposite sides of the rink. They played a game against the Blue Jackets and during line changes Sidney heard more angry mutterings about people on the bench _with_  them than he did about the team on the other bench. He thought a few players on the other team must have picked up on it, because there were a few too-long glances and raised eyebrows.

Struggling with trying to keep the two factions of their team from tearing into each other, Sidney barely had any time to think about how odd Claude had been acting much less the time to actually address it.

* * *

"What the fuck was that, Malkin?" At the sound of Claude voice, loud and angry, Sidney looked away from what he was doing. Red in the face and clearly pissed off, Claude didn't seem to care about all the differences in their builds as he had skated into Geno's space.

The team had split into four groups, and split the ice horizontally, so that they could practice their three-on-three lines. Olli and Ghost were hovering behind Claude, the two of them worked well as a defensive pair and were rarely split up now days whether it was practice or a game. Provorov, one of the freshman that had come up from Wells Fargo's middle school, and Tanger, who was playing to Provorov recently to serve as a bit of muscle protecting the younger defensemen, were behind Geno. None of them looked like they knew how to handle the situation in front of them. Which really only served to show Sidney that something serious was happening, because Tanger wasn't immediately throwing himself into the fight and defending Geno.

"Don't know what your talking about," Geno answered. His words were calm and cool, but they carried easily across the ice. Sidney resisted the urge to throw his head back and groan. Despite the words themselves, there was a clear tone in his voice that made it clear he knew exactly what he was being accused of and that he was guilty of it.

"Bullshit," Claude called out without any hesitation. Pushing up further, he snarled, "If you ever throw an elbow like that at me again I'll make your life a living hell."

The words had Sidney reeling, looking at the display in front of him with undisguised shock. Geno could get nasty during games, but he'd never directed it at a teammate before. He knew Geno didn't exactly few Claude as a teammate, but throwing an elbow like that was dangerous and it crossed a line. Feeling vaguely horrified and completely unsure how to handle it, Sidney just watched the scene going on in front of him.

"Threats aren't very captainly."

"You don't give two shits about how good a captain I am or am not," Claude hissed. "And honestly, I don't even give a shit how you feel about it. Regardless of how you feel about me or any other member of this team, though, you are not going to go around trying to injure me or my team."

"Yeah?" Geno said. He didn't voice it, but Sidney could practically hear the _what are you going to do about it_  in his tone. It was all icy, challenge. Sidney watched as Geno seemed to straighten himself up, gearing up for the fight he was clearly trying to start.

"Yeah," Claude responded. His voice was practically growl, his lips curled as he bared his teeth.

Claude was such a relaxed, go with the flow kind of person that usually Sidney found his aggression pretty hot. Back when they'd been on separate teams, they'd gone to a lot of each others games. Sidney had always been a little less cautious about meeting up with Claude after the rougher ones, pulling him into dark corners to kiss when his split lips were still slick with blood and his eyes still dark with anger.

Now, though, as Claude anger wasn't so fun.

Faced with a direct show down between his boyfriend and his best friend and the split in their team that that fight made obvious, Sidney didn't know what to do.

He wished Coach Sullivan was there with them instead of trusting Claude and Sidney to handle practice while he ducked out to talk to the schools transport manager about getting them to their next game. He didn't want to put himself in the middle of this. Not just because he cared for the two people in front of him and knew nothing good would come of picking either of their sides, but because Coach Sullivan would know how to handle this better than he did. He would know how to handle this without undermining Claude's authority as a captain or making what Geno did feel acceptable.

Instead he was the only kind of authority, given that Claude clearly wasn't thinking straight, which meant it was up to him to break it up.

"G," he called out. His voice carried across the rink, drawing both of their attention. He gestured from Geno to Couturier who stood across from him. "Switch."

He couldn't punish either of them, but he could separate them until Sullivan was around to figure out exactly what had happened and how to deal with it.

* * *

Sidney had just stepped out of the locker room, Schultz trailing after him because he'd promised him a ride home, when he heard, "Hey, Crosby. Can we talk for a minute?"

Looking up, Sidney found Claude waiting for him on the other side of the hall. The weather outside had been cold and dreary when they'd came to practice, but Claude clearly didn't care because he hadn't bothered putting the clothes he'd worn to school back on. Instead he'd pulled on a pair of loose black basketball shorts and a gray sweatshirt with fraying sleeves. His hair was still damp from his shower, a few shades darker than normal and curling around his ears, and he'd shoved a hat on over it. The bill was flipped around to the back.

"Sure," Sidney said. "What's up?"

Claude pressed his lips together. His eyes darted over to Schultz before he added, "Alone?"

"Oh uh...sure." Digging into his pocket, Sidney pulled his keys out and passed them to Schultz. "You can go ahead and start the car. I'll be out soon."

"Fine by me," Schultz said. He adjusted his hockey bag on his shoulder before walking past them. He nodded his head in Claude's direction, "See you."

"See you," Claude returned. Claude waited until Schultz had disappeared around the corner before he turned his attention back to Sidney. "Follow me."

Sidney nodded. He let Claude lead him away from the locker room, around a few corners until they were a few corridors from the trance and not likely to be overheard.

"Hey," Sidney said, speaking softly as they came to a stop. Claude leaned against one of the walls, so Sidney stepped in close. He reached up, hands ghosting against Claude's temple right under the hem of his hat. "Are you okay? Geno didn't actually catch you did he?"

"No," Claude answered. "The others wouldn't have let him get away with it if he had."

"Yeah..." Sidney let out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything else to him. I didn't know what to do, so I just got him away from you and left it up to Coach."

"It's fine." Claude shifted onto his left feet, forcing Sidney's hand to drop away from his head. "Look, I need to talk to you about something."

"Mmm?"

"I-" Claude took a deep breath, his eyes closing briefly. When he looked back at Sidney, he said, "I think we should break up."

Sidney felt like the floor had fallen out under his feet. His mouth went abruptly dry, his mind blank. All he could get out was a confused, "What?"

"We should break up," Claude repeated.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not going to keep being your dirty little secret," Claude said. Saying it out-loud seemed reinforce his decision because he straightened up, shoulders squaring and his chin tipping up. "I didn't sign up for that when we started going out, Sid. I wanted to keep it on the low while we figured things out, but we've figured things out and you still don't want to tell anyone. I've tried everything I can think of to get you to understand, but it doesn't matter whether I hint at it or out right tell you I want to tell people. You just don't get it. So either you don't care enough about me to want to tell your friends or you're so ashamed of me that you won't tell them."

"What?" Sidney repeated. "I'm not ashamed of you. Where is this coming from? Is this because I didn't say something to Geno today?"

"No," Claude said with a shake of his head. He paused for half a second before correcting, "Well a little bit. I just - You've spent all year acting like it's not possible for your friends to like me, but you've never even tried to talk to them about me or tried to get us to get along. Today just made me realize that I can't be with someone who's okay with his friends hating me to that extent, who doesn't even want to fix that."

"Of course I want to fix that," Sidney said. "But-"

"I'm sick of buts, okay? I'm sick of ifs and maybe and laters," Claude said. "So we're done."

Without another word, Claude pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning on and slipped away from Sidney.

Sidney watched him go, completely at a loss as to what he could say to make Claude turn back around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone!! I'm sorry this took so long. I actually have more free time this quarter, but I've been getting distracted easier because of it. Which is not a solid excuse, but the Sims is addicting man ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> 2) This one started a TAD late in the month, but that was necessary for what I wanted to do with it. Hopefully everyone still enjoyed (or as much as can be enjoyed given the events of this story?)
> 
> 3) Speaking of, did everyone totally see that ending coming? Because I tried to drop hints throughout the entire story, but this is in Sidney's point of view so I'm not 1000% sure they were all obvious. 
> 
> 4) Claude's outfit in the first section is inspired by his [Sharp Magazine](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0798/6119/files/Giroux-1_1024x1024.jpg?7160976771802829372) photoshoot. 
> 
> 5) Geno has actually tried [to kill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Sy-miL-2I) Claude with his elbows before. A few times actually.
> 
> 6) Skipped the interlude between the last two scenes because such a small amount of time passes that it's not worth writing?? If tha tmakes sense?? Hopefully it didn't throw anyone off given that this usually has a different format.


	8. March

Sidney stood at the center line, passing pucks off to his team for warm-ups. He had just sent a pass off to Simmonds when he felt someone skate up behind him.

Glancing over, he saw John Tavares set himself up on the line as well. He was Captain of the Islanders, who they were playing tonight, but there was a certain softness to the line of his shoulders that sang more of a concerned friend than a rival. Sidney figured it was because news of his and Claude's break-up had spread through the group chat they had for the guys that went to camp with them, the guys that knew about them because they'd spent the last two summers watching Claude and Sidney together.

"Hey Sidney," Tavares greeted, glancing over at Sidney with a small smile. Vaguely, Sidney wondered if the group had elected Tavares to talk to him because he was the person they played soonest or because it was incredibly hard not to talk to Tavares. He had a certain aura about him that made it easy to open up.

"Hey," Sidney returned. He turned his focus away from Tavares just in time to see Geno leave the right wall, skating towards the center. He passed the puck at him before asking, "What are you doing over here?"

"Passing to Stromie," Tavares answered. Out the corner of his eye, Sidney saw Tavares lift his chin as if to gesture to the other. "What else would I be doing?"

"John," Sidney said, voice sharp.

There was a moment before Tavares said, "You haven't been answering anyone's texts. We're worried about you."

"I muted the group chat because I knew you guys would be talking about something I didn't want to talk about," Sidney answered.

"And no one is blaming you for not answering in the group chat because you mute us at least twice a month, but you haven't answered any individual messages either," Tavares responded. "And when you won't talk to MacKinnon, Toews, or PK who are some of your best friends than you get stuck with me."

"Have you considered that I don't want to talk about it at all?" His frustration about this entire conversation had him hitting the next puck a little too hard when he passed it to Schenn. He caught it with little fuss, but the look he shot Sidney had him raising a hand and calling out, "Sorry! Didn't meant to do that!"

"Yeah, but avoiding this isn't going to make it go away," Tavares answered. Sidney didn't answer, instead focusing on his team in front of him. Tavares let it pass for a minute before he spoke again, "Sid. Come on. What happened with you and Claude? We got dessert after our last game and everything seemed fine between you two."

Sidney was quiet for a moment. Tavares, for the first time in the conversation, didn't push him to say anything. He just waited letting Sidney gather his thoughts.

"That was the problem," Sidney said at last. His eyes sought Claude out, finding him against the glass on the left side of the ring. He was standing with Voracek, both of them popping their heads as they sang along to the pop song playing over the stereo as they waited for their turn to shoot. He was one of the guys that preferred not to wear his helmet, so Sidney could see the way his hair was tousled from skating and the smile on his face and the happy shine in his eyes. All things that Sidney knew Claude would lose the second he spotted Sidney looking at him because he'd been doing that for the past few weeks, even before their break-up. "I thought everything was okay, but it wasn't. I was just so concerned with myself that I didn't want to notice."

* * *

_Sidney tossed his stick across the penalty box as he fell onto it, heavy and disgruntled._

_"Throwing a hissy fit, Crosby?"_

_Sidney didn't think he had ever glared as hard as he was when he turned towards the speaker. Claude Giroux was sitting on the other penalty box. Both of their helmets had gotten knocked off during their fight, so Claude's obnoxiously orange hair was sweaty and sticking up in all ankles. There was a dark purple bruise under his right eye, already starting to turn a sickly green around the edges, from where Sidney had punched him during a scrimmage a few days ago. Sidney managed to get his fist right against Claude's mouth today, so there was dark red blood smeared across Claude's bottom lip. Despite the bruises, Claude was watching him with a twinkle in his eyes and a smug smile across his lips._

_"Fuck off," Sidney hissed._

_"Can't," Claude said, an irritatingly song-like tone. "We're stuck here for five minutes."_

_"Because you couldn't keep your fucking stick to yourself," Sidney bit._

_"Man, I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing," Claude answered. "It's not my fault if you can't keep your feet away from my stick. Try skating on your own two feet next time."_

_Sidney clenched his teeth._

_He wanted to argue with him. He was irritated by how cocky Claude had been during their school season despite being a freshman and how cocky he was being despite this being his first year. He was irritated by how dirty Claude played and how often Claude got away with it. He was irritated by Claude's hair, as obnoxious in color as his personality, and how he never seemed to shut up._

_Everything about Claude irritated him, but Sidney was so fed up with spending time in the penalty box instead of out on the ice. He came to camp because it was invitation only, meaning it was filled with the best young Canadian players in the country. He didn't want to be stuck in the penalty box because Claude fucking Giroux happened to be as irritating as he was good at hockey. He wanted to be out on the ice learning from everyone else that was here._

_"Look," Sidney said, trying to reign his irritation in. The second the word left his mouth, though, he could tell he hadn't quite hit the mark. "As much as I love beating that smug smile off your face-"_

_"I really resent the implication that you've been winning," Claude interrupted. "You're looking far worse for ware than I am."_

_"As much as I love beating that smug smile off your face," Sidney repeated, speaking a little louder. He must have been louder than he realized because PK Subban, who was standing near the penalty box as he watched the play in front of him, turned his head a bit and raised an eyebrow. The game quickly caught his attention again, though. "I think we would both have a much better summer if we just ignored each other."_

_"I don't know about that," Claude said, drawing the words out. "I'm having a lot of fun."_

_"You're having more fun sitting in this stupid box," Sidney emphasized his words by kicking his foot against the front of the box, "than out there on the ice?"_

_"No," Claude said. His lips pulled up further, smile going more wicked at the edges. "But fucking with you is almost as fun as playing hockey."_

_"Go fuck yourself," Sidney hissed._

_He turned away from Claude, pretending he couldn't hear Claude laughing as he watched their teams carry on without them._

* * *

_Despite it seeming as though Claude was going to ignore Sidney's request, he didn't bother Sidney in the days that followed._

_The camp set up typical camp activities for the boys to do as strength or muscle training. Usually Claude made a habit out of annoying Sidney during these, heckling him to turn it into a contest or doing stupid things to ruin them for Sidney. A few days without Claude's interference were nice. When they went kayaking Sidney paired up with Jonathan Toews, a close friend from previous camp years. They spent the afternoon talking, Jonny describing particularly insane creatures that had been featured on episodes of River Monsters and Sidney making particularly horrible jokes that had Jonny laughing so hard the boat kept rocking, without worrying about Claude flipping them over. When they went on a hiking trip, Sidney jogged with Shea Weber and Jason Spezza. The three of them talked about how Jason's dad had gotten a transfer so he'd been switching from Canadian Tire Center to American Airlines for his final year of high school and how Weber had spent the last year listening to Fisher, one of his teammates at Bridgestone, swoon about a pretty girl from their school's choir only for Fisher to back out on actually asking her out before the year ended. Sidney didn't have to break away from them at any point to run up the hill, racing Claude. Instead Claude was racing PK through every other check point, spending the other ones trying to convince a stone cold Carey Price to race with them. There was a lot of laughing, joking, and teasing elbow jabs between the three of them, no where near as aggressive as the interactions Claude had with Sidney._

_After a few days, though, Sidney found that he kind of missed Claude bothering him. Yeah, it had been irritating, but usually there was an upside to it too. When Claude tipped the canoe he and Patrice Bergeron were sharing, the way Patrice looked when they resurfaced, his hair flattened against his head and water running down his face, had Sidney laughing so hard that it'd been hard to stay afloat. Being flipped had been irritating, but the splash fight that Patrice had instigated as retaliation had spread across the entire group until everyone was involved. Most things ended up as a competition, too many pre-existing rivalries existing in one place, but Sidney never performed as well on things as he did when he was competing with Claude. He'd made his best times on the obstacle course, on the rope course, on the rock climb when he was racing with Claude. The other teen had a way of pushing Sidney to do his best, even if he did it by getting under his skin._

_Sidney lived a few days living this strange paradox, relieved not to be dealing with the things Claude pulled but missing the boy despite them, before things changed._

_With only a week left in their first week of camp, making them not quite done yet, they shuffled up their scrimmage teams. Sidney was chosen to be a Captain of one of the teams with Spezza, Weber, and Jonny captaining each of the other three. The camp staff sorted the rest of the group out between them, not wanting to deal with the potential problems a mock draft would cause given that they were a group of emotional teenagers._

_Sidney ended up with Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan O'Reilly, Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Brent Burns, Patrick Wiercioch, Jake Muzzin, Martin Jones, and Claude._

_When the teams were first split up, Sidney was dreading it. But once they got on the ice, Sidney realized that despite all of their arguments, he and Claude had amazing chemistry on the ice. Claude was a natural center but he took the wing for Sidney's line, along with MacKinnon, and Sidney seemed to soar._

_Scoring goals with someone, winning with someone, sharing something that you loved as much as the two of them loved hockey made it hard to hold on to a grudge. With their grudge fading away, the two of them started interacting more._

_They sat on the bench during their scrimmages talking about everything under the sun. They talked about Sidney's firm belief that the Flyer's orange jerseys were absolutely obnoxious and Claude's non-committal agreement about how they were a little obnoxious but they were less boring than plain old black; Claude's obsession with bowling during the summer and Sidney's love of golf and how absurd they each found the other's hobby; and how Sidney was pretty sure he was going to kill someone if his little sister made him play Candy Land with her when he got home since they'd played it a million time during the school year and how Claude was one hundred percent certain his little sister cheated at Guess Who._

_They spent their practices teasing each other, friendly and gentle. When they were doing their skating drills they turned it into a competition, whipping around the rink with red bitten cheeks and laughter falling from their lips. Claude almost always won those competitions, using his smaller size to his advantage. Claude picked up a habit of skating lazy circles around Sidney when they were waiting to do their skating drills. They didn't talk a whole lot during those moments, both of them focused on watching how the others were doing, but Claude got into a habit of humming gently while he was moving and educating Sidney when Sidney didn't know whatever song he was humming._

_When they reached the half way point in camp, they were given a day off from practice and the camp set up a huge beach party for them on the lake. A group of them convinced one of the trainers to let Jonny take the keys to the motor boat so they could go tubing. The two spent that afternoon lounging around the boat with their friends, knees pressed together and shoulders constantly bumping. When it was Sidney's turn, Claude was so impatient that the two of them shoved themselves onto the tube together so Claude was practically on his lap. Sidney found that he didn't really mind it, just wrapped one arm around Claude's waist to keep them steady and gripped the bar with the other._

_When camp went back to their normal activities, Sidney found himself gravitating towards participating in them with Claude._

* * *

_"Seriously?" Sidney exclaimed when he resurfaced. He grabbed onto the flipped canoe, pulling himself up onto the bottom. Resting one folded arm on it, he reached up with the other to push some of his hair away from his face and wipe the water away from his eyes. "You were in the boat with me and you still tipped us?"_

_"What can I say?" Claude drawled. His voice was low and amused. "Liking you doesn't mean that fucking with you stopped being fun."_

_"You're terrible," Sidney said._

_As he dropped his hand from his face, he got a good look at Claude. The other boy was using his arms to keep himself up the same way Sidney was, but he had both of his folded. He was resting his chin on his forearms. Amusement was written into the shine in his eyes and the tilt of his lips. His hair was usually a soft nest of fluffy orange, but when they'd fallen into the lake it had been flattened against his face._

_Looking at him had a sharp swirl of warm affection pooling in Sidney's gut._

_Sidney had known he was nursing a crush on Claude, but now with the water dripping down Claude's face and the sun shining down on them he was abruptly aware of just how big that crush was._

_He hadn't been interested in too many people in his life, tending to care more about hockey than he did about romance, and he certainly hadn't ever been as interested in someone as he was in Claude._

_"You like me?" Sidney said. He tried not to sound too interested in the answer as he pulled himself up a little more. He mirrored Claude's position, scooting closer to the boat so he could rest his chin on his arms. "I figured you hated me."_

_"I definitely don't hate you," Claude answered with a small laugh. "I didn't even hate you before. I was irritated by you, but I didn't hate you or anything."_

_"You found me irritating?" Sidney said. "I wasn't even doing anything to you."_

_"Yeah," Claude said. "But we're from the same place, Sid. I find it a little irritating when I can't do anything - when my team can't do anything - without hearing about how much better it would be if you were the one doing it."_

_Sidney frowned. "I'm sorry."_

_"It's not your fault," Claude said. His smile had dropped over the course of their conversation, but now he flashed Sidney another grin. "Anyway, like I said, I like you now. Even when I find you annoying."_

_Sidney felt his face heat with a blush as the warmth in his chest grew stronger. Hoping Claude would dismiss the redness in his face as an effect of the heat, he lifted off one arm and leaned forward to flick to fingers against Claude's forehead. "You're the annoying one. You put us in the water."_

_Claude flinched back from the pinprick of pain, but he was laughing as he did so._

_Before either of them could say anything else, one of the trainers called out, "Stop messing about. Back in the boat, boys!"_

_"Sorry!" Sidney and Claude called out at once._

_Meeting Claude's eyes, Sidney said, "Go under and flip it back on three?"_

_"On three?" Claude said. "Or after three?"_

_"On three," Sidney clarified. He waited until Claude nodded before saying, "Ready?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"One, two, three."_

_Then Sidney and Claude plunged themselves back under the water._

* * *

Sidney had his head tipped down, focused on his calculus worksheet. The four of them that were in calculus together had split the problems on the worksheet between the four of them, each of them taking a problem from each of the four sections. It kept any of them from being stuck with all of the hardest problems or from having to do the entire worksheet.

It was a bit of a cheat, but their teacher had never complained since they weren't really cheating and they all pulled A's or B's on their tests.

They'd been working quietly for a while when Tanger spoke, breaking through the silence, "Hey G, are you heading to Russia for spring break?"

"No," Geno answered with a small shake of his head. "Mama thought I might want spend last break with you."

"Then let's do something together," Tanger said. "Just the four of us, Cath, and Vero."

Sidney flicked a glance at him. It was clear Tanger had been thinking about this for a while and waiting for the perfect time to bring it up. Catherine and Vero may not have been with them at the moment, but the chances were that Tanger had already discussed the idea with Catherine and once everyone else was on board Vero's parents would be an easy sell.

"Nothing big since Cath is going to Florida with her parents," Tanger said. "But a weekend trip, you know? We could head up to the campgrounds near Raystown Lake. My dad will let me take the truck, Sidney's dad will let him take the boat. We can spend the weekend swimming, fishing, making s'mores."

"I'm sorry what are we doing with my dads boat?" Sidney said. He'd mostly been focused on his work, but now he lifted his head and raised one eyebrow at Tanger.

"We are taking it out on the lake," Flower said. Sidney looked over at him, eyes narrowing. He realized very suddenly that his initial assumption had been wrong. It wasn't just Tanger that was in on this, but all of his friends. They'd been planning this behind his back. "He already agreed to let us have it since we've all taken the boating safety course."

"Yeah,," Geno agreed. "You won't tell us why you all moody and upset, but your dad knows."

"And he wouldn't tell us what was going on with you either," Tanger said, "but he did agree that you needed sometime with your friends to get it off your mind."

Sidney couldn't help the startled laugh that left his mouth, the sound a little self depreciating and bitter. "I really don't think anything is going to get my mind off this."

"Maybe not," Flower agreed, "but we can try."

"Sick of seeing you frown, Sid," Geno said. When Sidney shifted his gaze to him, there was a deep frown on Geno's lips and concern alight in his eyes. "We just want to try and make better."

"You guys really can't fix this," Sidney said. His chest ached as he thought about it. He knew his friends weren't the reason Claude had broken up with him, but he also knew that his friends couldn't fix this. Telling them about Claude now wouldn't chance how unwilling he'd been to do so when Claude was with him. "I can't even fix this."

"Then come with us this weekend," Tanger said. "We won't try to fix whatever is bothering you, we'll just try to give you something else to be grumpy about. Like the fact that Catherine will seriously under roasts her s'mores which is frankly disgusting and makes her kind of a freak of nature. It's a seriously upsetting thing to see."

Sidney stared at them for a moment.

The six of them alone in the woods? He didn't believe for a second that they would get through the weekend without them grilling him for information. But he knew that what they were doing was coming out of a place of genuine concern for him.

He hadn't exactly been acting like himself the past few weeks.

He could spend the weekend dodging their questions if it meant they would feel a bit better afterwards.

"Okay. Alright. Fine," Sidney said. He gave a small nod. "I'll come out to the lake with you guys this weekend."

* * *

_Sidney was standing at the center line with his stick in his hand and a pile of pucks in front of him. The net on the far side of the rink had a scattering of pucks gathered inside the net as well as a collection of missed shots against the boards behind them._

_"What are you doing in here? It's almost one. We stopped practicing almost eight hours ago."_

_Sidney had been looking down at the net, but he looked up at the question._

_Claude was standing in the home bench. While Sidney had pulled his clothes back on before walking over to the rink, Claude hadn't. He was standing there in a loose long sleeved shirt. It was one of his school shirts, bright orange in color with Well's Fargo Hockey written across the front. He hadn't bothered to put pants or shoes on, so the only other thing Claude was wearing was a pair of black boxers._

_"I missed most of my shots during practice," Sidney said. "So I wanted to practice a bit more."_

_"You had a bad practice," Claude said with a small shrug. "Doesn't mean you have to stay out here practicing until tomorrow morning."_

_"I wasn't planning on practicing that long," Sidney answered. "Just another half hour or so."_

_"No," Claude said._

_"No?" Sidney echoed. He raised an eyebrow. "You think you saying no is going to stop me?"_

_"No," Claude said, "but I can currently come over there and drag you back to our cabin."_

_"What are you talking ab-" Sidney watched as Claude put a hand against the top of the wall. He lifted himself up, swinging his legs over the wall and landing on the ice. "Claude, don't do that. You don't have shoes on."_

_Claude had been looking at his feet, trying not to slip on the ice as he stepped towards Sidney, but now he looked up at Sidney. "Are you going to come back to the cabin?"_

_"Later I will, yeah," Sidney said. "Another half hour isn't going to-" Before he could finish, Claude started walking towards him again. "Claude! Come on! You're feet have got to be freezing."_

_"They are," Claude said. "But you won't get off the ice, so clearly I have to come over there and make you get off."_

_"It's not that big a deal," Sidney insisted. Claude continued to ignore him so he tried, "I'm not going to skate off with you near me. I could end up nicking you or-"_

_"You'll be fine. It's not like your going to be lifting your feet up. I'm just gonna pull you."_

_Sidney opened his mouth to object, but before could get the words out Claude's feet slipped under him. Sidney leaned forward and grabbed Claude by the arms to keep him from falling, but the sudden motion unbalanced Sidney and instead ended up with both of them crashing to the floor. With all of their flailing as they fell, Sidney ended up lying with his back on the ice and Claude on top of him._

_"Oh my god," Claude said, speaking in a pain filled tone. He set his forehead against Sidney's sternum, releasing a small groan._

_"Claude?" Panic pulsed through Sidney. He lifted his head, trying to get a look at the area near their feet to see if there was any blood on the ice but the way Claude was positioned made it hard to see "Are you okay? I didn't get you with my blades or-"_

_"No," Claude interrupted. "But my knees are against the ice and it's fucking cold."_

_"That's why I told you to go back over the wall."_

_Claude lifted his head and bit, "Fuck off, Sidney."_

_Sidney opened his mouth to say something, but found himself mesmerized by how close Claude was. Sidney could see every freckle on his face, every fleck of different color in his eyes. When he glanced down, his eyes caught on Claude's lips. His lips were parted just slightly, bright red and a little chapped._

_"You're an idiot."_

_Claude's words forced Sidney to look away form his lips, meeting his eyes against. There was amusement and something that Sidney thought might have been fondness shining in them. "What?"_

_"You're an idiot," Claude repeated. He shifted himself a little further up Sidney's body. When he settled, he was hovering over Sidney with his palms on either side of Sidney's head. "Such an idiot."_

_Then he leaned down, capturing Sidney's mouth in a kiss._

* * *

_Sidney had been worried that things would change between him and Claude. Not because he didn't want things to change, didn't want to be with Claude as opposed to being his friend, but because he'd worried that when things did change he wouldn't know how to handle it._

_He'd seen how some of the couples around them acted. He saw how Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, two of the guys at camp who went to school together, operated with the fluidity of two bodies that had the same mind. He saw how Jonny snuck into corners with his phone to call Patrick Kane and how his face softened the second Patrick picked up. He saw the way Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin danced around each other, all soft touches and fond smiles and pretending that the spark between them didn't exist._

_It all seemed to come so naturally to them._

_And Sidney...Sidney was terrible at that sort of thing._

_It'd taken ages for him to get comfortable with the affection he showed his friends. Figuring out how to interact with Claude was an entirely different thing. He didn't want to mess that up because he was too awkward to figure out how he was supposed to interact with Claude now that they were more than friends, now that they were dating._

_Luckily for him, Claude seemed a lot more comfortable with the entire thing._

_Things didn't change much. They still spent their time teasing and arguing with each other, but now when they were arguing Claude took to leaning forward and kissing Sidney quiet. Sidney pouted and grumbled about it every time, but it was more about principle than anything else. He'd rest his hands on Claude's hips and pull him a little closer to kiss him again. They still spent their nights laughing with the guys in their cabin, but now they so with Claude in Sidney's lap and Sidney with his arm around Claude's waist. When they were all gathered around the floor to play cards, Sidney would rest his chin on Claude's shoulders and peer down at their shared hand. He'd make small suggestions about what Claude should do which always ended up with Claude insisting he knew how to play poker and Burnzie insisting that they were cheating. When they got a few moment during the day, rare between all of their activities and practices, Claude would grab Sidney's hand and tug him somewhere that they could be alone. Sometimes it was a dark corner were they'd exchange kisses until their lips were swollen red and spit slicked. Sometimes Claude would find them an empty area of camp and they'd lay in the grass with the sun shining down on their faces and the breeze blowing through their hair._

_It was nice._

_Sidney was comfortable and happy._

_But camp was only two months and it felt like barely anytime at all had passed before they were getting their final speech from their coaches._

* * *

_"Hey," Claude said, dropping down into the seat next to Sidney. The entire camp was gathered in the large open space between all of the cabins, enjoying the barbecue the staff set up for their final dinner there. Sidney had been sitting alone at one of the picnic tables while most of the others played games on the lawn. "I've come to drag you into playing baggo with me."_

_"Really?" Sidney asked, raising one eyebrow._

_"Yup." Claude rested his elbows up on the table top, leaning back against it. "PK's going to convince Pricey to partner with him."_

_"Really?" Sidney repeated, stressing the word even more than he had been before._

_"I didn't say we were going to be able to play soon," Claude answered. "I recognize that that may take a little while, but Pricey will give in eventually."_

_Sidney had no doubt about that. Pricey liked to pretend he was the firm one, but everyone knew that he was just was happy to cause mischief as PK was. He just ended up with a better alibi than the rest of them._

_Instead of arguing that, Sidney said, "I really don't want to play."_

_"I kind of figured that since you've spent the entire afternoon sitting over here being broody," Claude said. "But Tyler's busy playing croquet. I'd try dragging him away, but he keeps almost hitting people which is far too funny to stop."_

_"I am not brooding," Sidney argued._

_"You are," Claude answered, leaving no room for Sidney to argue._

_He'd been watching everyone else running around the lawn, but now he looked over at Sidney. Though there was a curious look in his eye, he didn't say anything. He didn't push Sidney to tell him what was bothering him._

_It was enough for Sidney to say, "I'm gonna miss you."_

_"Miss me?" Claude repeated. "_

_"Yeah," Sidney said, voice soft. He reached over, resting his palm on Claude's knee. "We're leaving tomorrow, Claude."_

_"Yes," Claude agreed, drawing the s out on the word. "But it's not like we're never going to see each other again. We live in the same town, Sidney, and I've got two weeks until I head up to Canada to see my grandfather. I might be up there for a month, but it's not like I don't have a phone Sid. You can call me whenever you want."_

_"That's not what I meant," Sidney said. "We might live in the same town, but things aren't going to be the same there as they are now."_

_"No," Claude agreed again. "But they don't have to be completely different either, Sid. If you just wanted a summer fling, that's fine. If you want more than that out of this, I'm perfectly fine with that too because I like you a lot Sidney."_

_"That is not what a wanted," Sidney said with a shake of his head. He squeezed Claude's knee. "I like you a lot too."_

_"Then what are you so worried about?" Claude asked. "As long as we want to be with each other, I don't see a reason why we have to break up just because we're going home."_

_"This is just going to be really hard to explain to everyone," Sidney said. "The rivalry between our schools is pretty intense. My friends don't like you and you're friends don't like me."_

_"No, but I don't see why we have to tell them right now," Claude said. "We've only been dating a few weeks, Sid. If you're that worried about it, we can keep it between us for a while okay? We'll figure things out before we tell them."_

_Sidney bit down on his lip. "Are you sure?"_

_"Yeah. Like I said, I like you a lot. I don't mind keeping a secret for a while if it means I get to do this more often." Sidney had half a second to wonder what 'this' was before Claude was catching his lips. As they kissed, Sidney ran his hand up Claude's side and got it into his hair._

_"Giroux! Crosby! Break it up." A hard voice shouted. Breaking apart, they looked over to find Coach Babcock looking at them, his arms folded over his chest while an amused smile played on his lips. "Still in charge of you for fourteen more hours. You can make out when you're your parent's problem."_

* * *

"Oh," Sidney said, the word leaving his lips in a smooth breath of air.

"You okay?" Tanger asked.

The two of them were in Tanger's father's truck, heading up to the camp grounds. The rest of their friends were packed into Geno's SUV, but Tanger had Sidney's dad's boat hooked onto the back of his truck so Sidney had rode with him.

"Yeah," Sidney said, nodding a bit. He'd had his head leaning against the window, but now he pushed himself up. "I just figured something out."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"That I'm a huge idiot."

Tanger let out a small chuckle, "I mean, I'm not arguing but why now?"

"Because I listened to one bit of information and completely forgot the rest of it," Sidney explained. He looked over at Tanger, trying to determine if explaining things to him would result in Tanger crashing. He didn't think so and, that aside, he figured he'd put this off long enough. "Can I explain to you why I've been upset recently?"

Tanger glanced over at him, clearly surprised. But he didn't hesitate to nod, "Of course you can."

Sidney took a deep breath than he dove right into it, "Claude broke up with me last month."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone!! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter even though the formatting was a bit different?
> 
> 2) On that note, I hope everyone enjoyed the formatting of this chapter?? It's a big different then usual, but I wanted to show how Sidney and Claude got together. So in the flashbacks, Claude is inbetween his freshman & sophomore years while Sidney is between his sophomore & junior years. Even though I've set this up so kids coming up into Freshman year can be on the team (Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin), this is Claude's first year. 
> 
> 3) I'm not sure how you guys are going to feel about this chapter not really having the Penguins? I love team Canada, though, and I wanted Sidney & Claude to have people that they HAD confided in. 
> 
> 4) On that note: the players that Sidney & Claude go to camp with are a mixture of team Canada players from the 2014 Olympic Games on but without Kunitz (The only other Penguin who has been actively on the Canadian roster besides Sidney and the few Flyers other than Claude (Schenn, Couturier, and Read). Also some of the sweet babies who are middle schoolers in this verse. 
> 
> 5) I stan Jonathan Toews liking River Monsters. Nothing makes fishing seem exciting like River Monsters. Especially if you already liked fishing. 
> 
> 6) You should laugh anytime you hear the name of a high school in this fic because I know I do. Using the arena names means that it doesn't always make sense, but it's sure hilarious. 
> 
> 7) MIKE FISHER IS MARRIED TO CARRIE UNDERWOOD AND SHE WAS DEFINITELY THE CHOIR GIRL IN THIS FIC. He never works up the balls to ask her out in this universe, but only because she beats him to it and asks HIM to homecoming when they go back to school after that flashback.
> 
> 8) The team Sidney mentioned in the interlude between the first two flashbacks consists of players from the 2015 World Team with their rivals being other players from the same team. They're smaller, scrimmage teams. The others at the camp would be sorted into two other teams for four teams total. With the exception of the aforementioned young players (including Aaron Ekblad who is DEFINITELY in middle school still in this AU). 
> 
> 9) Claude in the flashbacks definitely had his long hair. 
> 
> 10) On that note: I hope you guys enjoyed the flashbacks!!


	9. April

Sidney chewed on his lip, leg bouncing as he waited for a reaction from his friends. He avoided looking at them, focused on the dirt under them instead.

The group of them were sitting around the campfire.

Tanger had tried to get him to talk to everyone once they'd reached the campgrounds, but Sidney had pushed him to wait until the end of the day. Sidney was glad they'd decided to wait. Tanger had been spacey all day, clearly still trying to wrap his head what Sidney had told him in the car. Waiting meant that no matter how the rest of the weekend went, they'd had this one day that they'd gotten to enjoy. They'd gotten one day of laughing as the wind pushed the tents into Flower's face, of Catherine ranting about how Geno had tried to buy nothing but vodka when they went to the store, of the radio blaring and all of them singing at the tops of their lungs as they pulled the equipment and bags from the back of the SUV.

While he knew this was the right decision, knew he had to tell them what had happened even if it wouldn't fix what had happened between him and Claude, it didn't stop him from being worried about what they'd say. Tanger hadn't given him much of a reaction, the words such a shock that he'd almost drove them off the road but after that he'd been too focused on trying to comprehend the information Sidney was giving him to say much, so Sidney didn't know what to expect from the others.

But no matter what, no matter what they said now, they'd had this one good day.

"Well, I knew you were seeing someone but I wasn't expecting that to be you."

Sidney looked up at Catherine, surprised by the break in the silence.

She was wearing a light blue razorback tank and black jeans. When the sun had gone down, a chill had settled in the air but Catherine hadn't wanted to put a coat on. She'd settled for grabbing a throw blanket from her tent instead, wrapping it tightly around her shoulders. The way she curled into it made her look small. The fire streaked her face and hair with it's light. And despite how small the blanket made her look there was something about the way the fire hit her that made her look knowing, certain.

"What?" Sidney said.

"Vero and I knew you were seeing someone," Catherine said.

"We didn't know who though," Vero added. She was wearing dark denim shorts with white lace on the edges and an blue-green flannel that Sidney recognized as one of Flower's. There was an empty lawn chair next to her since Flower had chosen to sit on the ground between her legs instead.

"How did you know?"

"We tried to set you up with Tyler Seguin at Halloween and you got weird about it," Catherine explained. "It would have been fine, but you freaked out on us. We talked a bit about what else it could be and decided that what made the most sense, and didn't break our hearts, was the idea that you were with someone and freaked because you didn't want to cheat on them."

"Oh..."

There was a moment of silence before Geno said, "Sid, how we fix?"

"What?" Sidney repeated, looking over at Geno.

"Claude broke up with you because you didn't feel comfortable telling us about him," Flower said, speaking up. "Part of that is on you for keeping it a secret, but part of that is on us for making you feel like you couldn't tell us. We want to help fix it."

"I don't think I can fix it," Sidney said. He looked at the ground again, shame pooling in his gut. "Telling you guys doesn't fix the fact that I've been hurting him for months."

"But he stayed through that," Tanger said. Tanger hadn't said anything about this all day, so it was enough for Sidney to look back up despite the heavy shame in his stomach. Their eyes met. "I've been thinking about that since you told me earlier. You were hurting him for a while, but he stayed because he _loves_  you. He didn't leave you because he stopped."

"That good."

"That's good?" Sidney echoed, shooting Geno a look of incredulity. "That's not good! I hurt him!"

"But he love you," Geno said. "And you love him, yes?"

"Of course I do," Sidney answered without so much as a moment of hesitation.

"Then we fix it," Geno said, nodding with a certainty that Sidney admired. "Will not forget that you hurt him, but maybe you get past it."

Sidney didn't want to get his hopes up, not when he had ruined things with Claude so spectacularly, but there was something about having his friends support that made it very easy to fall down that rabbit hole. 

* * *

His friends didn't ask about Claude, but he knew that despite they're support they were curious about it. He hadn't exactly told them how it had happened or what their relationship had been like when explaining the situation to them. With his relationship with Claude out in the open and his friends supporting him in it, though, Sidney found it easier to open up about it.

When he and Catherine were making breakfast the next morning, having drawn the short straws the night before, the crisp morning air and the smell of the lake around them reminded him of hockey camp. He ended up telling her stories about it while they cooked. He always ended up telling his friends bits of the summer when they were back together, but now he told her the stories about Claude that he'd held back.

He told her about that first summer and how they'd found out that the best place to make-out without one of their counselors finding them was the little clearing up where they ended most of their hikes. It was a climb to get there, but that just meant that you had more time alone even if you spent some of it just holding hands as you climbed the hill. He told her how much Claude hated mornings and how Sidney would give him piggyback rides to breakfast and get plates for both of them because Claude was likely to grab something he hated and complain about it all day if he made his own plate when he was that out of it. Her told her how they'd been on separate teams, and therefore separate cabins, the most recent summer and how Claude would sneak into Sidney's dorm laughing because there were three other guys running across the grounds for the same reason.

When they were out on the boat that afternoon, Sidney ended up alone on the boat with Flower. The others had jumped into the water despite the cold temperatures, but Flower had laughed in their faces and planted himself in a chair. Sidney had agreed with him, deciding to stay aboard as well.

Sitting around on the boat in his board shorts with the sun beating down on his skin and the breeze slipping through his hair reminded Sidney of times when he'd done the same thing with Claude. He found himself telling Flower about them. He talked about how before Claude left to see his grandfather the two of them would spend summer days together. He told Flower about the time they went for a walk and ended up having a pull up contest in Mrs. Johnson's front yard. Claude had won, but only because Sidney had gone second and Claude had jumped up to snap the branch with him. They'd ended up kissing in the grass until Mrs. Johnson had opened her door and politely reminded them that she had a very impressionable toddler. He told Flower about the time they took Taylor and Claude sister, Isabelle, out on the boat with them. Sidney had wanted to fish, but everyone else had wanted to swim. With two little girls and his boyfriend pouting at him, Sidney had given in quickly. Sidney didn't regret his decision, not when they played chicken and the girls knocked him off Claude's shoulders so hard that it stung when he hit the water or afterwards when Claude was laughing as he kissed the back of Sidney's neck.

He and Geno were sharing a tent, leaving the two couples together. Lying on his stomach whispering to his best friend in the dark while they made their way through a pile of candy made Sidney feel like he was at one of his sister's sleepovers. However, there was something the entire thing which made it easy to tell Geno the things he couldn't tell anyone else. He told Geno how he hadn't been sleeping as well recently. Claude hadn't spent anywhere near every night in bed with Sidney, but they'd slept together a lot. There'd been a lot of short, post-practice naps or sunny afternoons spent wrapped in the sheets just because. He told Geno how his family kept almost mentioning Claude before they remembered. There were days when his mother made far too much food because she expected Claude to be there with him, when his dad was making plans for the weekend and asked if "they" wanted to do something that Taylor would have no interest in, when Taylor would want to play a game that Claude usually played with her because Sidney was terrible at it. He told Geno how much it hurt every time he saw Claude. How he hadn't looked him in the eye since the break up, how Claude lost his smile whenever he noticed Sidney watching him, how Claude acted as if Sidney was the worst possible person to be around.

It hurt to talk about Claude, whether he was talking about the good times or the bad, but it also felt nice in a way.

He'd spent so long keeping this huge part of his life from his friends and to finally have it out there, to finally share it with them like he did everything else, felt nice. 

* * *

"So what are you two doing for the rest of break?" Sidney asked. "Any plans?"

It was Tuesday afternoon. They'd gotten back from their camping trip late Sunday night and spent Monday with their respective families.

He was sitting in a booth at a small restaurant with Geno and Anna. Geno had his arm slung over his girlfriend's shoulders, Anna holding onto his hand.

They made a cute couple. Sidney was glad Geno had found someone even if it sucked to be the constant third wheel. Geno was happy and that was all Sidney wanted for his friends.

"Not really," Geno said. "Going to DC at some point. Help Sasha find anniversary gift for Backstrom."

"Their anniversary is soon?" Sidney asked. He wasn't terribly close to either of the people in question, but Backstrom and Ovechkin had had a certain aura about them when they were dancing around each other. He didn't remember that going away until the beginning of a school year. "I thought they got together during the summer."

"Late June," Geno reported. He reached for his drink, taking a sip from it. "Finding best gift is hard, though. Sasha thinks Backstrom hung moon and is very indecisive. School will be out by time he actually decides on gift."

Sidney gave a soft laugh. He hadn't been quite that bad, but he remembered how hard it was to pick a gift for Claude. He'd wanted to give his boyfriend something perfect. He'd ended up giving Claude a book of grilled cheese recipes. He'd worried it was a terrible gift, but Claude had laughed when he unwrapped it and Sidney knew he'd used it before.

As if summoned by Sidney's thoughts, the bell above the door went off. He looked up at the sound, instinct, only to find himself staring at Claude.

Claude was wearing one a red sweatshirt, one of the ones they got from camp, and a pair of dark shorts. He wasn't with any of the people he usually hung out with, instead holding the door open as he ushered Ghost, Provorov, and TK inside. Sidney figured taking them out to lunch during Spring Break was Claude's way of not only connecting with the younger guys but making it clear to them that they were part of this team, of this family.

It was exactly the kind of thing Claude would do, always so easy going and social.

Sidney watched as the group of them made there way to one of the booths on the other side of the restaurant. Claude slipped in first then TK slid in next to him. Ghost and Provorov slid in across from them, their backs to Sidney. Claude hadn't seen Sidney, but Sidney could see him through the crowd.

"Should we say hi?" Sidney tore his eyes away from Claude, looking back at Anna. She must have read some kind of shock in his eyes because she added, "You were staring at them. Figure you want to say hi."

"Oh." Sidney looked over at Geno, but all he got was a shrug. His friend was clearly leaving it up to him to decide what to tell Anna. After a moment, Sidney said, "Claude and I broke up recently."

"Oh," Anna said. She didn't ask any more questions, chalking her lack of knowledge up to not being very close to Sidney yet. "Saying hi awkward then?"

"Yeah," Sidney agreed with a small nod. "I don't think he'd like it very much if I interrupted them."

In the brief silence that followed, Sidney found his eyes drifting back to Claude. He watched as he leaned close to TK, gesturing to something on the menu. Whatever it was made TK wrinkle his nose in displeasure which had Claude laughing, the familiar sound carrying across the room.

"You want me to say hi for you?" Anna asked, drawing his attention back to her. "Figure out how he is?"

"What?" Sidney said. "You don't know him do you?"

"No," Anna said, "but I know Ivan. Russian community in this town is very small. Could go say hello, tell him that Mama has been asking about him. Say hello to others as well."

Sidney considered it for a moment. He wanted to know how Claude was, even if just on the level that he'd share with a stranger.

Then he glanced up, catching sight of Claude again. He had put the menu he was teasing TK with down, or handed it to him since TK was now looking through one. He had his arms on the table, leaning forward as he talked to Ghost about something. He was smiling still, though, clearly having a good time with his friends.

"No," Sidney said at last, shaking his head as he forced himself to look away. "He's having fun. If you went over there and said hi, he'd realize who you were with when you came back and he...he wouldn't be anymore. I don't want to ruin his day."

There was a moment before Sidney felt a hand come to rest over his. He'd been looking down at the table top, but now he glanced up to find Anna had reached over to put her hand on his.

Anna said, eyes sympathetic and voice soft, "You love him a lot. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Yeah," Sidney said. He wasn't quite sure which part he agreed with more. Still, he turned his hand so he could hold hers and squeezed. "Thank you, Anna. For your offer."

"No problem," Anna said with a shake of her head. "You're Zhenya's family. I want to help when I can."

* * *

Spring break passed quickly and easily.

Sidney split his time between his family and his friends.

Taylor had busted out her warmer clothes and sorted them into piles of what did and didn't fit. He took her to Goodwill to drop off what she was getting rid of then took her to see a movie. He thought she'd pick some cute animated thing or maybe some romantic comedy now that she was a bit older, but instead she chose a horror movie. He'd never been so thankful that they went in the middle of the day. Afterwards he took her out for lunch. He wouldn't take her to the pizza place she wanted to go to, wrinkling his nose at the idea of something that greasy, but he took her to the wrap place she liked and bought her dessert afterwards.

He spent a night at Flower's house with Tanger and Geno. The four of them gathered on Flower's bedroom floor with a collection of snacks between them. They'd picked up kale chips and Cheetos, little snack packs with apples and peanut butter as well as skittles and gummy bears. They spent most of the night playing card games, poker with jellybeans from Flower's beanboozled game as their chips that had them gagging every time they ate one and rounds of UNO that had Geno swearing in Russian when they stacked the cards so far that he had to draw twenty. They got Flower's Wii out afterwards for games of Mario Party, playing individually and in pairs until they hated each other so much that going to sleep was the only way to preserve their friendship.

Spring break also meant time to travel, so Sidney spent the weekend at the end of break in Chicago with Jonathan Toews. Jonny had asked him when he first arrived in Chicago if he wanted to talk about Claude, Tavares had gotten them all to lay off since he'd talked to Sid last month but Jonny was still one of Sidney's best friends, and when Sidney told him no he let it drop. They drove an hour to hike around Waterfall Glen, went sailing on Lake Michigan, and used some vouchers for CrossFit classes that Jonny's coach had given him in anticipation that Jonny would like it. They ate the type of food that Sidney's friends from home always groaned about him liking, going to salad places instead of pizzerias and getting wraps instead of tacos. They caught a Blackhawks game, Jonny cheering for them even though they hadn't won a cup in decades, and Sidney let Jonny drag him to a White Sox game even though his baseball knowledge was abysmal. It was a nice way to end his break.

When school started back up, though, Sidney noticed something weird happening around him. He didn't notice immediately, focused on trying to get settled back into the rhythm of his classwork when graduation was approaching and everything seemed like such a chore with graduation approaching, but the more time that went by the more he became aware of it. He kept catching his friends talking to Flyers.

Even though they'd been complaining about them constantly, it seemed like every time Sidney turned around he saw one of them talking to one of them. When he was going to find Catherine so they could walk to class together he passed Tanger having a conversation with Simmonds that involved a lot of extravagant hand motions. He skated off the ice after practice one day only to look behind him and see Flower hanging around the far net with Mason and Neuvirth. When he came out of the building one day he found Geno standing next to Voracek's car as he spoke to him and Schenn.

Sidney didn't know what was going on, but it wasn't exactly a bad thing that the team wasn't fighting anymore so he didn't look too deeply into it.

* * *

"Okay so," Flower said as he fell into step with Sidney. The two of them had been the last ones of the locker room that day, Sidney talking to Sullivan and Flower waiting for him. "The guys and I have been thinking-"

"Oh good," Sidney interrupted. His voice was filled with sarcasm as he added, "It always turns out well when you do that."

"Okay, usually you would be right," Flower admitted, "but not this time."

"Really?" Sidney said, suspicion in his voice as he glanced over at him. "This isn't going to end with anyone using their bikes and hockey sticks to joust?"

"I maintain that that was brilliant and it's not my fault Olli sucked so much that he broke his hand." Sidney let out a puff of laughter. It had been amusing to watch, but Olli being out for weeks had killed their defense. "But no, this isn't going to end like that. I'm pretty sure you'll like this idea.

"You were pretty sure I was going to like jousting."

"It's not my fault you decided you were allergic to fun that weekend," Flower returned. As Sidney pushed open the door to the parking lot, Flower continued, "Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that the guys and I have been thinking about you and Claude. We've decided that there's no way your getting back together unless we bring in the big guns."

"The big guns?" Sidney echoed.

"The big guns," Flower repeated. Then he lifted his hand, pointing. Sidney followed the line he created to Geno's car to find a group of Claude's closest friends standing with Sidney's.

Simmonds was leaned against the car with his arms crossed over his chest while Voracek was leaning against Simmonds. Schenn and Couturier stood on Simmonds other side. Standing between them all was Danny Briere.

"Coincidentally," Flower said, voice casual, "did you know that they've known about you and Claude for months now? He wanted them to know, but told them to keep it a secret until you were ready."

"Oh fuck," Sidney swore.

If there was anyone who truly terrified him, it was Danny Briere. Jake was Claude's best friend, but Danny was Claude's brother. They'd been inseparable since they'd met. They'd even lived together for a short period, when Danny and his girlfriend Sylvie had had a pregnancy scare that'd gotten Danny kicked out until he sorted things out with his parents. The rest of the Flyers knowing meant that Danny knew and if Danny knew they'd been going out, he knew what had happened between them. Which meant if he got his hands on Sidney-

"I'm not going to strangle you," Danny said, interrupting Sidney as he was trying to think of an escape route. "I thought about it at first, but Claude told me that even if your a piece of shit he didn't want you dead."

Sidney flinched, hit hard by Danny's words. He couldn't help asking, his voice raw and vulnerable, "He said that?"

Danny was quiet for a moment, a moment which had Sidney's heart sinking, before he sighed. He shook his head. "No. I called you a piece of shit and he said not to say things like that because your still the love of his life." Before Sidney could process that, Danny added, "Which is the only reason we're helping you out. For some reason despite all the shit you put him through, he's more miserable without you than he was with you."

"What?" Sidney said, worry pulsing through him. "But I've seen him out with you guys. He doesn't look-"

"Of course he doesn't look it," Danny said. "You should be familiar with his ability to look fine even when he's miserable."

Sidney flinched again, even though he knew he deserved that one. "Yeah."

"Still he loves you for some reason and all we want is for him to be happy, so we'll help you out," Danny said. Before Sidney could thank him, he added, "But if you pull this shit again, you won't have _time_ to run away from me. Understood?"

"Crystal," Sidney said with a sharp nod.

Danny watched him before nodding. "Alright. Then step one, we get him to actually look at you again."

* * *

Danny didn't stay in town for long, having only been around because he'd hit his spring break, but Sidney didn't really need him around to remind him not to hurt Claude again. If they could somehow get Claude to give him another chance, then Sidney was going to make sure he did everything in his power not to fuck it up again. He'd shout about their relationship from the top of the Empire State building if that's what it took.

Over the next couple of days, Sidney found himself frequently dragged into situations with Claude.

When they were having one of their study sessions, Sidney found himself sitting at a table with Claude, Flower, Mason, Simmonds, and Geno. For most of the session they worked alone, having their own conversations that weren't nearly as loud as involved as the one they could hear at the table the younger players were occupying, but at one point Claude asked Simmonds for help with something he was working on. It was for a class that all Juniors were required to take, something everyone but Mason who was in with Claude had through. Simmonds hadn't hesitate to wave Claude off, telling him that he would lose his train of thought if he stopped in the middle of the problem he was working on so he could ask Sidney instead. Claude hadn't look too pleased with the idea, but he'd been there when Sidney had been taking the class and he knew exactly how high a grade he'd gotten in it. He moved so he was closer to Sidney, staying just far enough away that they weren't touching, and pushed his text book towards it. Sidney was willing to take what he could get, so he ducked his head down and started pointing out what he thought would help.

Little things like that kept happening.

At first Sidney thought their friends were being ridiculous, that none of this really mattered, but the longer it went on the more Claude seemed to get comfortable with Sidney's presence again. The more their friends shoved them together the more comfortable Claude got with their shoulders bumping together. There'd been an almost radio silence from Claude, speaking only when their positions as co-captains forced them to, but now Claude was talking to him when they ended up together. Not the same kind of conversation as they'd had before, but questions and small talk which was better than nothing.

It wasn't necessarily what Sidney wanted, but it was something and that was so much better than nothing. 

* * *

"I hate you both," Sidney said.

"Don't be a sore loser," Catherine said, laughing as she slipped into the booth across from Sidney. "We out voted you fair and square."

"You guys have been ganging up on me for eighteen years," Sidney said. "That's not fair at all."

"That's not true," Tanger said. He slid in next to Catherine, dropping the Taco Bell tray in his hands onto the center of the table. Despite his protests about being there in the first place, Sidney immediately reached for his Baja Blast slushie. "You didn't start this health kick until we were teenagers so it definitely hasn't been more than four years."

"That doesn't mean you weren't ganging up on me about other things before then."

"What can I say? We were always a power couple," Catherine teased.

"More like a power pain-in-the-ass," Sidney returned. He took a sip of his drink before he reached forward to grab his tacos from the tray. As the two of them laughed at him, Sidney found himself regretting going out with them. He should've hung out with the younger guys. They might not have the money to go out to eat, but playing video games with them was better than dealing with these two teasing him.

"Hey guys." Looking over at the new voice, Sidney found Pierre Bellemare and Claude standing at the end of their table. Bellemare had been the one to speak, but Sidney's eyes focused on Claude. It was particularly warm today, so Claude was wearing a pair of light shorts with a gray tee-shirt that read "Warning: Sarcasm Loading" with a white loading bar below it. A pair of dark sunglasses had been pushed up into his hair. He had a white slushie cup from the gas station connected to the Taco Bell in his hands so Sidney assumed they'd been getting gas when they spotted the rest of them. "You mind if we join you?"

"No, you're welcome to," Catherine said. Sidney gave Tanger a look, silently asking if they'd planned this, but Tanger looked as though he'd been caught just as off guard as much as Sidney had.

"Cool. I'll go put our order then, Claude," Pierre said.

"Quesadillas please," Claude said as Pierre moved to walk past him to the counter.

"I know, I know."

Claude watched Pierre for a moment before looking back at the table. He seemed to be debating his choices before he slid into the booth next to Sidney. It was small, so their knees bumped together as Claude was getting situated. It was only for a moment, but the contact sent a sharp, pleased pulse to Sidney's heart.

"Pierre's treating you?" Catherine asked.

"Yeah," Claude agreed with a small nod. "I'm driving him around, so he's paying for gas and lunch."

"Hey Claude," Pierre called from the counter. "They're machine can't make baja blast slushies right now. Do you want a soda instead?"

Before Claude could answer, Sidney bumped their shoulders together. "I can take the cap off mine and we can share if you want. I'm never going to drink the whole thing."

Claude hesitated for a moment before nodding. He gave Sidney a small smile, "Sure. Thanks."

Sidney was so happy that it felt like his chest was going to burst open, unable to hold everything he was feeling.

It was the first time Claude had smiled at Sidney in ages and nothing Sidney had ever felt was as good as that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed this installment of this fic. Only one chapter left!
> 
> 2) I know you guys wanted some kind of extravagant reaction to Sidney telling his friends, but I just don't see that happening. Especially not given the circumstance. His friends aren't going to give a big extravagant reaction to something that they /know/ has been bothering Sidney.
> 
> 3) "Aly why didn't you describe what geno and the others were wearing like you did Catherine and Vero?" Bc boys fashion is gross and I only care about 1 percent of the time when it comes to them. 
> 
> 4) I love the Crosby/Toews friendship IF YOU COULDN'T TELL. Also never forget that Jonny cheered for the Cubs despite being a huge Soxs fan. I mean bandwagon to a certain point, but that's just betrayal. 
> 
> 5) I'm not a huge fan of the last interlude in this chapter. It didn't necessarily come out the way I thought it was going to. 
> 
> 6) [Claude's tee-shirt](https://www.etsy.com/listing/259490294/teen-boy-gift-funny-t-shirts-christmas) in the last section because teen age boys always have the sassiest tee-shirts. 
> 
> 7) Not many notes for this one because I wrote most of this on mobile which wasn't conductive to writing my thoughts down.


	10. May

"So," Flower said, drawing the word out suspiciously. Sidney looked at him out of the corner of his eye, suspicious. That was a tone of voice that very rarely meant anything good for Sidney. "How are things going?"

"How are things going....?" Sidney trailed off, raising his eyebrows as he waited for Flower to fill in the blank.

The two of them were sitting on the floor in Sidney's living room with their backs against the couch. Their little sisters were in Taylor's room. Sidney and Flower were close enough friends that Taylor and Marylène had spent a lot of time together, becoming friends quickly. So sometimes when both of them were babysitting they'd take one of the girl's over to the others house, spending time together while their sisters had a play date. Though neither girl was particularly keen on the word play date anymore.

"With Claude!" Flower said.

They could've picked any number of things to play, but they'd decided on Mario Party. It brought out their competitive and brutal natures. As he spoke he lifted his controller up, making Toad jump to hit the dice block, "Things with Claude aren't going anyway."

"They're going _some_  way," Flower said. "You two are talking again right?"

"A bit," Sidney admitted. He couldn't help the small smile that settled on his lips at the thought. Things really weren't going any way as far as he was concerned, but Claude talking to him again made him happy. "Not about anything that matters, though. We talk about the team and he asks me some questions about his homework during our study sessions."

"Nothing else?"

Sidney shrugged. "He ended up having lunch with Tanger, Catherine, and I the other day. We talked about some tv shows and stuff."

"Well that's something, right?" Flower said. "That's normal conversation! Comfortable stuff! Vero and I talk about stuff like that when we're cuddling and shit."

Sidney just hummed. He understood what Flower was saying, part of him even agreed. The idea of getting his hopes up, of letting himself think that things between him and Claude were getting better, was terrifying though. He wasn't sure if things between him and Claude could ever be mended, wasn't sure if anything they were doing would actually change anything.

Still, he appreciated everything his friends were doing, appreciated their attempts at helping him fix this.

"Hey," Sidney said. He kept his eyes on the screen as the mini-game wheel came up, but spread his legs so he could bump his knee against Flower's. "Thank you for all of this."

"You don't have to thank me, or any of the others for that matter," Flower said. He moved to push against Sidney's knee with his own. "We're hurt that you didn't tell us, okay? We have shared every part of us with you and it hurt that you didn't do the same. But we understand the reason you didn't share that with us is because you thought you couldn't." This time when Flower bumped their knees together again, it was enough for Sidney to look over at him. He found Flower staring back, expression honest. "This? Helping fix a mistake that we created? This barely scratches the surface of what we would do for you."

"I know," Sidney said, swallowing around the thick knot of emotion in his throat. He added, "I would do anything for you guys too."

"We know," Flower assured. There was a moment when they just looked at each other before Flower turned away. Looking back at the screen, he said, "Come on. I need to kick your ass at this mini-game to afford the Star next turn."

"I'm not letting you win," Sidney said, letting out a soft laugh as he did.

Sidney may not have Claude, may never have Claude again, but he would already have this. He was always going to have his friends, just like they were always going to have him. 

* * *

The Flyers and Penguin getting along was a weird experience, but it wasn't necessarily a bad one.

Sidney had never spent any time around Claude's friends, but now he found that he actually liked them quite a lot.

Voracek was as loud and exuberant in personality as he was in appearance. He always had something to say, sometimes it was something Sidney was genuinely interested in like little bits of Czech history while other times it was something absurd like the hypotheticals that Claude liked to ask. Sidney found that he liked talking to him during warm-ups, spending moments listening to Voracek talk when they were waiting to practice their shots or laughing together as they changed in the locker room.

Schenn and Couturier were a dangerous combination. They liked pulling pranks, liked making jokes, liked making the people around them smile the same way that Claude did. Sidney watched them with the same cautious eye he used when it came to Flower or Tanger, but he often let them do whatever it was they wanted to do. Usually it made him laugh and even when it didn't the consequences usually weren't that bad.

Simmonds seemed different from the rest of them at first. He seemed calmer, less out of control, but there were somethings which lit a fire in him and had him throwing a punch before anyone could blink. It was exactly the same thing Claude did when anyone said something about one of the freshmen or one of their little sisters. Sidney liked the quiet moments that came with being around Simmonds, the way that Simmonds didn't push him to talk when they were together. But he also liked the moments when he said something that got Simmonds spiraling into a tangent, passionate and angry and interested. Sidney had never heard someone get so passionate about the Lord of the Rings books as Simmonds did.

They were all the type of people that Sidney was drawn to and part of that was because Claude had been drawn to traits in each of them that were similar to the ones he had. And Sidney had always been drawn to Claude in one way or another.

The best part of the experience, though, was that getting to see Claude with his friends. Sure the transfer meant that he'd been around Claude while he was with his friends, but he hadn't ever really spent time with them and seen how Claude interacted with them.

It was his first time seeing how Claude and Jake teased each other, pulling each other into headlocks and elbowing each other. It was his first time seeing how Claude encouraged Schenn and Couturier, but managed at the same time to stop them from doing anything that would get them into too much trouble. It was his first time seeing how Claude seemed to prod at Simmonds to get a reaction and how Simmonds was more amused than irritated by it.

Claude and Sidney weren't together anymore, but Sidney was still getting to see new sides of Claude.

He wasn't happy about why he was able to see them, but he couldn't bring himself to be upset that he was getting to. 

* * *

"You know, practice has been over for almost an hour."

Sidney was down at the net, tapping the pucks that he'd already shot back towards the center line so he could go again, when he heard the words.

Looking up, he found Claude leaning against the boards. He had changed out of his uniform, back into the distressed gray shirt and dark jeans he'd worn to school. His hair was dark from his post-practice shower, sticking down in a way that it almost never did when it was dry. His hockey bag, filled with all of his gear, was slung over his shoulder. There was a small playful smile on his lips as he looked at Sidney.

"I could say the same to you," Sidney pointed out.

"I'm not on the ice," Claude returned.

Sidney made a face at him, irritated by the technicality of the statement. "You're still at practice though."

"Yeah," Claude agreed. "But only because it took me so long to get in the shower."

"Afraid of what the others will think?" Sidney teased.

"You've seen me naked. I don't have anything to be ashamed of," Claude said. The words weren't necessarily flirty, just matter-of-fact. This was the first time Claude had mentioned their relationship to him since it had ended. The picture the words brought to Sidney's mind was a nice one. He thought about Claude lying Sidney's crisp sheets, skin smooth and pale. He thought about with his lips plump and red from kissing, his head tipped just enough to show off the bruises and bites along his collar, his hand resting just below his navel. Sidney was snapped out of his thought, by Claude adding, "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Sidney croaked, throat suddenly dry. He watched as Claude's lips pulled up, smile widening. He wondered briefly, if Claude knew exactly what he had been thinking about and found it amusing. He doubted that Claude didn't know what his words would bring up, but he didn't understand why Claude would bring it up either. Clearing his throat, he asked, "What took you so long to get in the shower?"

"I was talking to Sullivan about next year," Claude said.

"Already? I thought we were focusing on the end of playoffs."

They'd won the division playoffs easily. The Blue Jackets and Capitals were good teams, but neither team could stand up to the combined power of the Penguins and Flyers. Especially not now that they were getting along. They were in the middle of conferences now. They'd edged out the Canadiens and were waiting on the results of the Capitals versus the Senators before playing their finals match. Afterwards they would face whoever came out on top of the other conference for the Nationwide title. It was looking like they would end up playing the Ducks.

"You are," Claude said. "But I've still got next season to think about. We're losing a lot of guys this year so he wanted to talk about some possibilities for next year. If there was anyone I thought could move up from junior varsity, if I knew anyone coming up from the middle school that would be a help."

"Ah," Sidney said. "You're going to be a good Captain next year."

Claude shrugged. "Who knows. I've never been a Captain before."

"Your a Captain now," Sidney pointed out.

"Not by myself," Claude said. "You're here with me."

"History would say that's not the best for you," Sidney said. He winced immediately after, wondering why he'd even said that. This was the first time they'd been alone like this since the breakup. He supposed the emotional toll that came with that was enough for him to slip.

"Sometimes," Claude said. The edges of his smile dropped a bit, going sad at the edges. "But there were times when you were great for me too."

They were both quiet for a moment, just watching each other.

Sidney opened his mouth to say something, he didn't know exactly what but _something_ , only to be stopped by Claude lifting the strap on his bag to secure it more tightly.

"Well, I've got to get home," Claude said. "I'm supposed to be watching Isabelle."

"Oh...Okay. Have fun."

"Thanks." Claude turned to leave, only to stop and look over his shoulder. "I know how much of a perfectionist you are, but don't stay too late okay? It's a team sport, Sid."

"I won't," Sidney agreed, meaning it. He couldn't imagine saying no to Claude in these circumstances, not when this was the first thing Claude had directly asked him for in months. "I'll leave after this round."

* * *

Sidney's world narrowed to nothing but hockey after his conversation with Claude.

The Capitals beat the Senators, a result everyone had been expecting.

The entire team went out for breakfast the morning of their first game against the Capitals, Sullivan paying for all of them. Sidney ordered breakfast crepes filled with eggs, bacon, and cheese. He only got to eat about a fourth of them before his friends started stealing bites, Geno taking a giant scoop of them and complaining about Sidney getting them with bacon instead of diced ham while Olli leaned over from the bench behind Sidney to grab a scoop for himself, but he made up for it by taking plenty from theirs. He took some of Flower's french toast, ate half of the hash browns that Tanger had ordered in addition to his meal, and took two of Geno's four cheesecake pancakes. There was a lot of fork jousting and arguing. At one point Sidney tipped two fingers into the whipped cream on top of his coffee and smeared them under Flower's cheeks like warpaint.

Their table was far from the only mess at the diner. He heard Sullivan yelling at the table where a bunch of the rookies, Konecny and Provorov with Sheary and Bennett and Schultz, for using their straws to blow spitballs at each other. He looked over to the table where Horny, Hags, and Phil were sitting to find that Horny and Hags were practically draped over each other, giving Phil puppy dog eyes as they tried to convince him to share the giant stack of pancakes he'd ordered with them. At some point the table Claude and his friends were sitting at exploded in laughter when Del Zotto tried to hit on their waitress.   
  
They won the game that night.

Then they won the ones after it until they took down the Capitals in six games, winning four to their two.

It turned out that the Ducks got beaten by the Sharks for their conference title, but in the end it didn't matter who they were facing.

Sidney and his team came out on top. They were national champions.

They won the game in San Jose, but none of them let that deter them from partying immediately after the win.

Once his speech had been made, Sullivan was happy to let them go wild in their hotel with nothing but a warning not to get the cops called on them if they didn't want to call their parents for bail money because he definitely wasn't going to the one bailing them out.

They gathered in one of their hotel rooms, the entire team along with the girlfriends that had been able to make the trip, and shoved all of the furniture to the walls. It was crowded, but they made it work and most of all it was _fun_.

Catherine's parents had let her come as a reward for getting all of her grades up to an A. She'd shown up with Vero, Anna, and a backseat full of alcohol that had loosened Sidney up enough for him to even attempt to dance. So Sidney danced with her pressed close together and laughing as Catherine tried to make Sidney look less like an idiot. He put his arm around Schenn, holding onto this boy that had so recently become his friend and laughing as they watched Geno try to teach Provorov to drink vodka like a real man. He sat on the edge of one of the beds, watching as Claude tried to wrestle with Tanger. The two of them had been arguing about something, not seriously since they were both laughing occasionally, but whatever it was it had dissolved into them grappling each until they were on the ground.

Sidney watched them and he _wanted_.

He watched Claude, the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and Tanger, a friend that he knew would spend just as much time irritating him when they were eighty as he was now that they were eighteen, interacting. He watched them getting along, watched them being friends.

He thought about being twenty-two, living in a shitty apartment near campus where he slept with Claude every night and argued with Flower about not buying another carton of eggs after using the last one. He thought about being twenty-eight, getting to spend every night on NHL ice. He thought about sitting in hotel rooms during road trips with Skype open, talking to Claude about how their dogs' veterinary appointment was going and asking how Anna was and if the stress of worrying about the baby had killed Geno yet. He thought about being thirty-nine and retired from hockey, body too bruised and beaten to play anymore. He thought about spending nights out on the deck, a beer in his hand and Claude curled with him in a chair that was far to small to fit two people, and his days playing golf with Tanger, laughing every time Tanger hit the ball too hard out of frustration or let out a string of curses.

He thought about all of it and he _wanted_  it more than he'd wanted anything else in his life.

He wanted it and all he wanted was to figure out exactly what he had to do to put himself on that path again. 

* * *

"Hey," Sidney said, dropping his tray down onto the lunch table. "Can we talk?"

Simmonds and Jake were the only ones sitting at their table currently. The two seniors spent lunch with a collection of freshmen and sophomores, but not Claude or any of the other Juniors who had a mandatory class that pushed them into the other lunch group. The two teams were getting along, more than that they had made friends, but they still tended to separate themselves at lunch. They shuffled around occasionally when they needed to talk, but Sidney sat at the table by the window because he wanted the sunlight and he wasn't willing to move just because Jake wanted to be closer to the ice cream stand.

Simmonds had been looking at his phone, Sidney guessed that he'd been texting his girlfriend given the hearts in the contact name, but he looked up when Sidney spoke. He tilted his head, expression curious.

Sidney wondered if he was thinking about what Sidney was going ask, about what had driven him to sit here instead of at his usual table.

"Sure," Simmonds said. He set his phone on the table in front of him. "What's going on?"

"Would Claude say yes if I asked him out?"

There was a quiet moment before Jake spoke up, "You know, I kind of expected you to ask something like that but I'm still surprised by it."

"Okay," Sidney said. "But that wasn't an answer."

Simmonds snorted. "Pushy."

"For a reason," Sidney returned. He pursed his lips together before saying, "I really don't want to go into details with you guys because it's personal, it's between Claude and I, but I had a revelation the other day. I just... Waiting for him is hard. I want to do whatever I can to be with him. And you know, maybe he's not ready for that yet but I have to at least try don't I?"

There was another beat of silence.

Jake was the one who broke it, again. "I think I might've puked a bit."

"Fuck off," Sidney said, flipping one finger in his direction.

Jake laughed, amused with Sidney's reaction.

"It was sickening, but it was sweet too," Simmonds said, bumping his knee against Sidney's. Sidney flashed him a small, relieved smile. Simmonds smiled back before sighing. "Look, Sidney, it's never been a matter of Claude not wanting to be with you. He loves you, okay? You can't imagine how many rants I've sat through about it."

"He rants about being in love with me?"

"Yeah," Jake agreed. "He's a big fan of your ass. Which I guess is predictable given that there's so much there to love."

"Fuck off," Sidney repeated.

Simmonds cut in again, "Anyway, it was never a matter of Claude not loving you, Sid. It was about Claude _wanting_  to be with you and you not being able to be with him the way he wanted. He wasn't going to force you to do something you didn't want too, so he left."

"Do you think if he knew everyone else knew it would change things?"

"Maybe," Simmonds said. "But it might be too little, too late."

Sidney pushed the food on his tray around, thinking. After a few moment, he looked back up. "What if it wasn't though? What if I did something bigger?"

"What?"

"I have an idea," Sidney said. "It won't make Claude forget what I did, but I think it'll fix things."

* * *

Now that the hockey season was over, Sidney and most of his friends turned their attention to senior things.

Catherine, Veronique, and Anna had gone to Senior carnival together, because when the rest of the class was released for the carnival the boys were released to travel for their game. On the day the class had chosen for their skip day, the boys had to be in school in order to play in the game that night so the girl's spent the day at Catherine's house giving each other pedicures and doing each others hair. The girls had had fun together, but all of them felt bad for not being there with them. Being a senior in high school wasn't just about graduating and finally leaving high school. It was also about enjoying as much time as possible with your friends before you went to different colleges.

With prom coming up, one last party before graduation, the group of them were determined to make sure everything went exactly the way they wanted to.

Sidney spent his days helping his friends get things ready for the event. He spent an entire afternoon helping Tanger blow up balloons to fill Catherine's room with them, matching the banner they hung above her bed that read "Will You Fly Up To Prom With Me?" He spent another afternoon with his hands covered in chalk as he helped Flower write down a list of reasons why Veronique should go to prom with him. He went with Geno to buy five roses, letting both of their fingers get pricked by thorns as they tied pieces of paper with each letter and the question mark to the roses.

There was no world in which they weren't asked to prom, if their boyfriend's hadn't asked he was certain they would have found someone else to go with, so Vero and Catherine had already made an appointment to go dress shopping. Anna was going with her mother so it was just the two of them and Sidney at the shop. They'd wanted a guy's opinion, but neither of them had wanted their boyfriend's to see the dresses before prom. Sidney helped Catherine pick a dress with a lavender skirt that hit right above her knees and a lacy white top encrusted with blue, purple, and silver jewels. It had one strap made of jewel encrusted net that wrapped around her shoulder. Veronique picked a light pink dress with a top that was made almost entirely of net, solid pink material covered her breast but the rest of it was made of lace leafs. The dress flared out like a flower starting low on her back. Picking the dresses had been harder than Sidney anticipated, both girl's trying on far too many to count and having trouble picking when it came down to it, so Sidney treated them to lunch.

Though none of this was going to be even remotely as exciting as prom itself would be, it was fun to spend this time with his friends. It was fun to have these moments when they were all laughing and smiling and enjoying their last few weeks as high school seniors.

In between it all, he figured out what he was going to say to Claude. 

* * *

"Hey everybody. Most of you know this, but I'm Sidney Crosby and I'm one of the captain's for the schools hockey team," Sidney said into the microphone.

The crowd of people in front of him dissolved into cheers. It was the end of the year assembly, a week before prom and senior's last day. They did a wrap up assembly every quarter for the sports teams to talk about their performance and thank the student body for the support. This specific assembly was more about the seniors having fun and playing games, but they started it off by letting a few of the sports teams talk as well.

Sullivan and Claude had agreed to let Sidney do their speech. Sidney's final duty as the Penguin's captain.

Sullivan had agreed to what he was going to do after it as well since no one had wanted this to get ruined by Sidney getting suspended for doing something the school didn't want him doing during an assembly.

"So I want to thank all of you," Sidney said. "The merger made this a rough season for everyone. We had to go from being each others number one rivals to being teammates, but we managed to do it. And now we get to call ourselves Nationwide Champions."

Sidney went quiet, letting the entire room erupt into noise again. This time they were louder, whistling and clapping and stomping their feet. It felt like the entire room was shaking and Sidney couldn't help smiling at it.

"Okay, okay," he said, holding his hands out. "Come on, guys. We all know I'm not comfortable giving speeches like this, so why don't you all quiet down so the baseball team can talk to you instead." His words had the cheers turning into laughter, but in the end it fizzled out so he could talk again. "Like I was saying, we get to call ourselves Nationwide Champions and a big part of that is you guys. You were there to support us for every home game and every away game." He paused before he added, "Now you guys can cheer again."

As the room exploded into cheers again, Sidney looked sideways. The team was spread out on either side of him, the original penguins lined up on his left while Claude stood at his right with the former Flyers spreading out to his side. They didn't normally have the entire team up here for speeches, but they were Nationwide Champions and the school had agreed that they all deserved to be recognized for it.

Sidney was glad for it because having Claude by his side made this plan way easier.

Claude glanced over, noticing Sidney watching him. He flashed Sidney a small smile.

Sidney's chest filled with warmth. Claude's smile was one of his favorite things. Seeing it just just reaffirmed his desire to do this.

"One last thing okay, guys?" Sidney said. He waited until the room quieted down, wanting to make sure that Claude heard what he said. "Okay so I am in love with my co-captain, Claude Giroux."

Whispers swept across the room.

They weren't very loud and Sidney heard it when Claude said, "What."

"We were actually dating at the start of the school year," Sidney continued. "But I messed up because I didn't want to tell people because I was so comfortable in the way that things were that I didn't notice how much he hated the way things were." He turned his head, meeting Claude's eyes. He was surprised, but he didn't look horrified or disgusted. "I messed up so bad, Claude, and I know that. But I'm trying to fix that. I know it's too late, but I told my friends and now I'm telling everyone else we know. Because you were right, I was treating you like a dirty secret and you didn't deserve that. There aren't words to tell you how sorry I am about that, but I would really, really like to fix things and try again. " He took a deep breath, eyes darting away from Claude. When he exhaled he looked back up. "So would you please go to prom with me?"

When Claude didn't say anything right away, Sidney felt anxiety crawl up his stomach.

After a moment though, a smile spread over Claude's face. "Sure."

"Really?" Sidney asked, unable to help the way his voice cracked in the middle of the word. He heard their audience giggling, both the other students and their teammates, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He'd let people laugh at him all day and night if it meant Claude would go out with him.

"Yeah," Claude said with a small nod. "I mean it'd be really mean of me to turn you down in front of all these people."

"You don't have to say yes," Sidney said. "Not if you don't want to."

"Sid," Claude said, his voice going soft. He stepped forward, grabbing one of Sidney's hands. "I love you too, okay? I want to be with you. I just didn't want to hide this anymore. If you're ready to stop hiding-"

Sidney took a deep breath, feeling shaky with relief. "I am. I promise."

"Then I'm ready to try again," Claude said. "Buuuut I don't think prom would make a very good first date, so you've got to take me out this weekend and buy me a burger."

"Absolutely," Sidney agreed. He squeezed the hand Claude was holding. "Anything you want."

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! It's a little sad that this fic is over, but I've loved writing it and I'm glad to have shared it with everyone! I was a little uncertain about writing a HS AU for hockey rpf since it doesn't seem to be a very popular troupe in this fandom, but ultimately I had a lot of fun and you guys were super supportive!
> 
> 2) I'm not sure how old Flower's little sister is, but I made her Taylor's age in this fic for fic purposes?
> 
> 3) Claude is in love with Sidney so I imagine when their getting close again he finds it hard to not flirt with him like he does in the third scene. I imagine flirting, especially with Sidney, just comes natural to him. 
> 
> 4) I feel like the lunch scene (scene 5?) was a mess. I hate the conversation. 
> 
> 5) The prom proposals were all based on real ones. [This](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/ee/60/31/ee6031678c533ee6cfe39ebbcd3bb09a.jpg) is Tanger's, [this](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ad/15/1e/ad151e3c8eddea1868ef43d92bb956d8.jpg) is Flower's, [this](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2f/cb/61/2fcb61cdef3bceca5f4a7058973caf74.jpg) is Geno's.
> 
> 6) Then there's [Catherine's](http://g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB144JRJpXXXXa1XVXXq6xXFXXXm/-font-b-Beautiful-b-font-One-Shoulder-font-b-Short-b-font-font-b-Prom.jpg) prom dress and [Vero's](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/52/a5/1a/52a51a1ac60e6499a13bc8249f05b2bc.jpg) prom dress. 
> 
> 7) I hope you guys all liked the ending? Sidney and Claude have a lot to figure out after this, but their future is hopeful and they're going to do great. I hope no one felt like it was too fast either, but it was never a matter of them not wanting to be together. They love each other and they want to be together, but the way things were Claude just /couldn't/ do it. And I think if things changed, he'd be able to again. 
> 
> 8) Honestly, I just want to once again thank everyone for all of their support while writing this fic! You guys are a huge part of why this fic even ended up getting finished. And I hope you're all happy with the final result!


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